


Home is Behind

by elluvias



Series: Home Is Behind [1]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Angst, M/M, Maybe fluff, Multi, Oh yea, Tattoos, Unrequited Love, also apparently nori is a bamf too, also i've spent way too much time playing dragon age, and now hobbits, and now the valar, and ori, aule is in so much trouble, because this is what it's turning out to be, bilbo's a bamf though, but probably not, except not, holy crap this story is surprising me with who is showing up, if somehow something good blooms in my sadistic shriveled up heart, is more for BOFA, just to warn folks now, later on, lobelia will kick you if you call them tattoos, maybe i should just put something up about 'usually asshole characters end up being pretty awesome', no one dies, than this fic, the no one dies tag, thranduil's not a total dick
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-07-04
Packaged: 2017-12-05 08:09:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 49,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/720802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elluvias/pseuds/elluvias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dwarves do not marry or love outside their race. It would have been nice, if they could. It would have saved Bilbo Baggins' life, if they could. They cannot though, and will not. He will die of his broken heart, but he is mortal so it would have happened anyway. It's painful, it's disheartening, but it is reality. So Bilbo leaves Erebor for Mirkwood, to keep the secrets of his people safe and to spare the family of his heart the sight of his Fading.</p><p>Then the true nature of his Ring is found out.</p><p>Bilbo will destroy this evil before the Fading takes him. He can live until then, complete this task to protect the people he loves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Like a Thief in the Night He Leaves

Bilbo Baggins of the Shire knew this day would come. He was only a hobbit. A hobbit, not a dwarf. No, he was not one of the stout folk, who dwelled in these cavernous halls. He was not important or grand in any way. He was in fact plain and past his prime. He was not handsome or suave. He was actually quite awkward with a love of things that did not coincide with dwarven standards.

Why had he done this to himself? Why had he agreed to stay in Erebor?

Even as he asked himself these questions in despair he knew the answer.

Love had made him do this. Love had made him remain with the family of his heart and with the dwarf he loved above all else. Love had kept him in these halls.

The wedding was a joyous occasion. Weddings almost always were. A commoner marrying the king! Who would have thought of that? Not most of the population of Erebor it seems, as almost everyone not within Thorin’s Company exists in various states of shock. Not the bad sort of shock, the good kind. The kind that seems to mark a new era for the kingdom.

He cheers when it’s appropriate, toasts when it is appropriate, and loses himself once more to the automatic functions of his body. Thank the Valar his manners are ingrained in him. That he can smile and laugh as hobbits only can, even when their heart is breaking.

Bilbo never had a chance. Not with either one. A dwarf marrying or loving outside their race was unheard of. There was a greater chance of an elf and a human finding a match than there was with a dwarf and anything not dwarf. It simply wasn’t done.

So he is grateful when he is rescued by the most unlikely of people.

“I have forgotten the way to my rooms. Show me.”

Thranduil’s hand on his upper arm is like a vice. The party is getting rowdier and rowdier and Bilbo was drowning because he could not escape without drawing attention to himself. Nothing in him wants to refuse Thranduil’s order. Bilbo is, of course, Erebor’s Ambassador with the fair folk. It makes sense for him to help Thranduil out.

And if he is half dragged out of the party by the elven king instead of leading him out, no one seems to notice or care. He is led out of the Great Hall and down winding corridors until he is unceremoniously dragged out onto a balcony.

The air is cold and crisp, almost biting against Bilbo’s flushed skin. It’s comforting, to be outside, even if it is an unholy hour of the night.

Thranduil maneuvers Bilbo onto a bench, sitting him down before staring at him with ancient eyes. The elven king’s mouth is drawn into a thin line of displeasure.

“You are going to Fade.”

The words are not spoken gently. They are in fact delivered in an almost flat tone. Almost, because Bilbo can hear a single note of grief in that cold tone. There were many things dwarves did not know about hobbits, and likely never were going to. That they were cousins of the elves, had elvish blood in their veins. That hobbits had a language all their own, as secret and guarded as the dwarves. A language of life and green things, a language given to them by Yavanna. A language that was ever growing, ever changing, as varied as it was the same. The elves knew of it, and some had learned it by virtue of being _family_. Even Gandalf did not know the living language of the hobbits. The language Bilbo spoke to the plants and earth to wake it from its slumber.

That hobbits wilted when they could not get to the sun or water. That they were so intrinsically connected to the earth, that one of the cruelest punishments one could dole out was to hide them in shadow. To take away the bright sunshine, to hide them from the dark warm soil and to lock them in stone.

It had never been a problem, really, for Bilbo to get the sun he needed in Erebor. Always going to Dale or walking the paths along the mountainside, helping to breathe life into a place so soaked in death.

But there was a final piece that the dwarves were never going to learn. The Fading.

The inevitable death of heartbreak that elvenkind and hobbits suffered. Sometimes it took years. Other times it took weeks.

“I know.” Bilbo didn’t stop the sigh that escaped him. Thranduil offered him no comfort, no hug, nor warm kind words. “I’ve got no one to blame but myself. Falling in love with dwarves. I doubt you’ve heard of things more foolish than that.” A self-deprecating smile with a good dose of humor at himself. Bilbo had been the butt of jokes and pranks too many times in his life to imagine much else.

Yet Bilbo found his heart settled, just a little, as the king sat beside him.

“Will you sing your Fading song tonight?”

Looking up at the stars Bilbo looked within himself. Taking the time to carefully examine his broken heart.

“No.” Bilbo finally answered. It would not be tonight, but it would be soon. He knew it.

“Good. Then you will have time to pack your things.”

“’Pack my things’?”

Thranduil turned his gaze back to the hobbit beside him. The cold and distant elf was frowning down at him imperiously, as if he was unused to being questioned. Bilbo found that it was the way of kings, usually, to take umbrage over most questions given to them.

“Did you think I’d let you stay here? We are kin, no matter how distantly related. Hobbits are blood bound to the wood elves and as such you fall under my protection. You are to pack your things and in the morning you will leave with my kin and I to Mirkwood. There you will have rest and peace until your Fading is complete. Distance will not stop the Fading or even slow its progress. What it will do is make it less painful for you.”

There was a moment where Bilbo blinked in confusion at the King. Then there was gratefulness. A warm spring of gratitude that welled up towards the cold king of the woodland elves. This elf was not the sort to be kind for the sake of it. This elf only cared about his people, and while Bilbo still had issues with how the elvenking had treated the dwarves after the fall of Erebor, it was something to be told that he was under the icy king’s protection.

“Thank you.” Bilbo’s voice was soft but filled with gratitude.

“Do not thank me for something all kin would do.”

Silence fell between them then. It wasn’t the bad sort of silence, there was no hint of awkwardness with it. It was almost peaceful if the tiny cloud of grief and knowledge of what was to come could be ignored. They stay outside, together, for hours. Until Thranduil finally bid Bilbo to go pack what he needed.

When dawn came Bilbo had what he needed. Sting, his Mithril coat, his ring, and a few sentimental trinkets and baubles he had accumulated in the five years since he’d settled permanently in Erebor.

There was no grand farewell given to him as he walked out the front gates with his pack, keeping pace with Tranduil. In fact few dwarves noticed their resident hobbit’s departure, most still sleeping off the effects of the party. He had left a letter, speaking of an emergency he needed to attend to and that he had to resign his position. He had willed his things to be given divided amongst the Company as they saw fit.

It was as such, like the burglar he was still often called, that Bilbo Baggins departed Erebor to Thranduil’s gilded halls.


	2. One Lost Thing Is Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thranduil is not a total douche.

“So _that_ is how they managed to escape.” Thranduil did not smile though Bilbo was almost certain that he was doing so. The hobbit was trying his best not to turn an embarrassing shade of pink or mimic Ori and shrink down into his slightly oversized clothes. Legolas was smirking across from him though, unable to hide his amusement.

“Here we thought we were to be forever shamed that dwarves were able to think of and execute a successful escape from our dungeons. The blow to our pride is less severe knowing that you were the one to help them.”

While there was amusement in Legolas’ words and demeanor, something seemed to begin shifting in Thranduil’s. Bilbo could not say he was an expert on the elven king. Only half a year had passed since he’d come to live with the woodland elves. Still in six months Bilbo had learned he was adept in gauging the king’s moods, perhaps all his time spent with Thorin came of something.

The thought of one of the pieces of his heart sent an aching pain through Bilbo’s entire body. It coursed through his blood like ice and stabbed through him like knives. He barely flinched when it happened now, his mind and soul growing too used to the flare ups of pain.

How he wondered sometimes how they were doing. Were they happy? He hoped so. Bilbo was not a resentful soul. He loved them, with every piece of his insignificant self. He loved Bofur’s horrible humor and Thorin’s guarded expressions. He loved how they lit up when they were near each other. He loved that they were happy.

Bilbo wished them all the luck in the world.

“You say that it was a ring that helped aid you in evading capture.” Thranduil’s voice was steady, but something seemed off. “Rings of Power are not trifles. I would like to examine it and see if I can discern its origin.” Behind the dark fathomless eyes of the king there was something, concern, perhaps even fear if Bilbo could hazard a guess.

It was easy enough to nod. Bilbo knew the requests given by kings, whether the king was a dwarf or an elf mattered little, were to be carried out as quickly as possible. Sliding out of the oversized chair (which was regular sized for an elf) Bilbo went to his rooms. There had been little need to bring the ring with him around Mirkwood. Now that he wasn’t fearing for his friends lives he found a sense of peace settling into his soul here. No need to pretend, no need to hold his tongue or curb his emotions. There was no need to make sure he was not being inappropriate. That he wasn’t leaning too close or staring too long. There was a sense of freedom at not having to wear a mask.

The elves would not stand for him to pretend in these halls. They would, and had, sat him down and explained that such deception was unnecessary and wrong. They did not think him lesser for being broken or feeling pain as his broken heart killed him. They would not have him hide his Fading, for trying to hide it would only make him more conscience of it, and would likely hasten its happening.

So he fetched the ring as Thranduil asked. Not because the elf was a king, but because he had been kind. Thranduil had become Bilbo’s friend, and Bilbo had so few of those now. He didn’t dare to think of what the Company thought of his abrupt departure. He closed himself off from those thoughts, that pain.

If Thranduil wished to examine his ring then so be it. Bilbo would let Thranduil examine it.

Coming back into the room Bilbo didn’t hesitate to carefully hand Thranduil the ring. He watched as Thranduil lifted it up and frowned as he examined it. Then with a quick movement, almost too fast for Bilbo’s eyes to see, Thranduil hurled the ring into the fire. A gasp escaped Bilbo’s throat and for a second he felt the urge to run to the fire to check on the ring.

He would have, likely, if Thranduil hadn’t already risen from his chair and moved over to the fire. Silence reigned, oppressive and stifling for a time as Thranduil began to look old and world weary.

“Legolas.”

“Yes, adar?”

“Send word to Rivendell and Lorien that we are calling a Council. Gondor must be contacted as well, but they will listen to Elrond or Galadriel before they will listen to me. When you are done with that begin preparing guest quarters for dwarves and men. I am going to send riders to Dale, Erebor, and the Iron Hills. Bilbo come here.”

Legolas did not argue with his father. When he was certain that Thranduil was done giving instructions he was running out the door. Whatever had just happened, whatever was about to happen, it was big and bad. The sort of bad that Legolas could only hazard a guess at and feel dread curling inside him.

Bilbo did not run to Thranduil’s side when the elven king demanded his presence. He did move quickly, watching in fascination and concern as Thranduil used a fire poker to knock his ring out of the fire. Thranduil moved it until it was well away from the flames.

It was then that Bilbo noticed the glowing letters on the golden band. They were elvish letters, though Bilbo could not discern what they said. Thranduil tilted his head at Bilbo and glanced down at the ring.

“Pick it up.”

“What? It’s just been in the fire!”

“Bilbo Baggins, if Smaug somehow came back from the dead and breathed dragon fire on the ring it wouldn’t warm. It is quite cool to the touch and I dare not come in contact with it again.”

Bilbo began to bend down to pick up the ring.

“Well what is it?”

“A relic of great Evil.”

The hobbit stopped in his movements and stared up at Thranduil incredulously.

“You want me to _pick up_ a relic of great _evil_ with my bare hands?”

“If you feel better using a handkerchief then by all means use it.”

Bilbo blinked for a moment, unsure whether if he was to smile or if he was to glare at the elven king. Thranduil gave Bilbo a long suffering look, one that the hobbit had seen on Thorin’s face many times regarding his sister-sons.

“It isn’t awake yet. You have been in possession of the Ring for years now and have not suffered for it mentally or physically. You are alive, healthy, and as whole as one can be while Fading. As far as I can tell you have nothing that the Ring can use to gain a foothold in your heart. You’re almost sickeningly good. Which is a boon for us. Keep it hidden until I tell you otherwise and for the love of the Valar do not _use_ it.”

It was those words that spurred Bilbo into finishing his task. He grasped the ring and slipped it into his pocket. It was a rather innocuous relic of great evil. If he didn’t trust Tranduil he might not have believed it…but then he remembered Gollem in the caves. He remembered the insanity of the creature’s manner and way of speaking. He remembered how twisted it was and he wondered, once more, what Gollum had been before he was in those caves. It could happen to him. Bilbo knew it now. He could become that twisted creature….except.

He couldn’t. No.

It wasn’t the first time, but it was perhaps the most profound time that he was grateful for his Fading. That he would die. The assurance of that end made him relax, just a little, despite having something of unmentionable evil in his pocket.

Men and dwarves would probably be horrified at his thoughts. To be grateful for death, to be thankful his soul was slipping slowly from his body. He still hadn’t sung his Fading song, not yet. It wasn’t time yet. Yet it would come, as did the sun rise in the East. This was no trivial lovesick maiden whimpering over a broken heart. It was something more, something greater and less survivable than a tween’s bruised heart.

Elves knew differently. They knew the broken heart, the tears and cuts in his soul that would not heal. They knew that death was a reprieve, blessed and kind when a Fading happened.

It was strange, sometimes, to marvel at how close Hobbits and Elves were. To notice that they were far more similar than men and elves or hobbits and dwarves. It was this quiet understanding that had led to the good relations between the two races. They were family, some elves closer kin than others to the hobbits. Like those of the woodland realm.

When he got back to his room he carefully took the ring from his pocket. Taking it to the chest that held most of his belongings he wrapped it in a spare handkerchief and placed it in the bottom. Closing the lid he sat on it, shutting his eyes for a moment to collect himself.

Bilbo wasn’t certain how long it took for him to finally gather the courage to open his eyes once more. It could have been minutes. It could have been hours. Yet when he did so he felt incredibly tired. Too tired to even blame himself for bringing such an accursed thing from its hiding place in the Misty Mountains. Too tired to try and remind himself that the Ring had helped him save his friends’ lives or even help reclaim Erebor.

Bilbo Baggins was tired. He wanted comfort, he wanted care. All he could afford himself, he mused to himself as he stripped off his clothes and began to ready himself for bed, was the ghost of what he needed.

When he crawled into bed his hand fisted on a rectangular piece of brown cloth he kept by his pillow. It was all he had to remind himself of Bofur and the dwarf’s warm demeanor. He burrowed himself down under the blankets and Thorin’s old travelling cloak. He had managed to convince Thranduil to find it amongst the pile of weapons and armor the elvenking had ‘forgotten’ to give back to the Company. One of the few times Bilbo was grateful for the ongoing feud between Mirkwood and Erebor.

He drifted off to sleep pretending that tomorrow the world would be a better place than when he went to sleep.


	3. Dragons Still Live In Erebor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is an unspoken rule in Erebor: Don't fuck with Clan 'Ri.

“They’re being spectacularly stupid.”

Nori drawled as he detached himself from the shadows. The unofficial spymaster of Erebor grinned at his younger brother as he sidled up next to him. Ori had been watching Thorin and Bofur for the better part of half an hour an expression of exasperation on his young face.

“Don’t say that outloud!” Ori hissed, unsuccessfully ducking Nori’s hand as it came down to ruffle his hair.

“Well it’s true. I’m not fond of elves, especially the golden gits of Greenwood, but if Thranduil is inviting us there for a secret meeting and we know that Dale was invited too then we should be packing to go rather than trying to figure out if there’s a way we can kidnap Bilbo from Thranduil’s halls. As much as it confuses me Bilbo left willingly with Thranduil under no duress. I know Bilbo’s ‘I’m currently doing something I don’t want to’ face and the expression he had leaving here wasn’t that.”

Ori made a noise as he twisted the sleeves of his cardigan. The entire Company had been upset with Bilbo’s sudden disappearance. They had all ridden out immediately when Nori had informed Thorin of Bilbo’s departure around noon. Almost everyone had seemed perplexed, confused, and downright betrayed that their hobbit had left without a verbal goodbye in the night. Well everyone except the brothers ‘Ri, Bifur, and Balin.

Nori loved his friends dearly, but most of them were as dense as the stone they lived in. They were as observant as goblins sometimes, which is why he sometimes wondered how they managed to live through their journey to Erebor. Then he remembered Bilbo, who had more sense than the dwarves had weapons and had used his sharp intellect to save their hairy asses more times than Nori dared to count.

They hadn’t realized Bilbo loved the royal couple. They didn’t catch the quiet affection in which he treated Thorin and Bofur. They hadn’t noticed the tears in Bilbo’s eyes as Thorin and Bofur said their vows to each other. They hadn’t noticed when Thranduil had bodily dragged Bilbo out of the Feast.

Nori had, because it was Nori’s job to notice every little happenstance. He was the spymaster and before that a particularly skilled criminal. Nori was good at seeing behind masks, noticing the details others of his kind overlooked.

The dwarf had followed Thranduil and Bilbo out of the great hall and through the winding corridors of Erebor. He had stayed in shadow but within earshot when Thranduil had taken Bilbo out on the balcony. He had listened to the conversation, his heart flaring in anger and grief over Bilbo’s words and Thranduil’s. Nori wasn’t stupid and he picked up enough contextual clues to gather a vague but bleak idea what was happening.

Nori wouldn’t be able to truly consider himself Bilbo’s friend if he had stopped the hobbit from leaving. Not when Nori didn’t have all the information he could gather. Not when he saw the mask the hobbit wore crack and slide off for a few moments and revealed a grief so terrible that it was quiet. That it was such a great consuming beast that no screams or wails of despair could be heard. Just the resignation that this would be his end and that he welcomed it.

So Nori gave Bilbo a head start and misinformed his king and friends about which way they’d gone to Mirkwood.

Then Nori went to work. Well somewhat. There was only so much the dwarves and humans in his spy network could tell him about something called ‘Fading’. So Nori went to the best resource he’d ever had at getting information legitimately.

Ori hadn’t been fooled when his older brother had come inquiring about strange things so soon after Bilbo’s disappearance. The royal scribe had in fact managed to get every single detail that Nori had kept hidden from everyone else with such skill that Nori had wanted to, for a second, recruit his little brother into his network. The only thing that stopped him from asking was the thought of Dori finding out, because Dori always found out.

It had taken a month and a half for Ori to get every single scrap of information on the Fading that he could. Ori had started to cry halfway through his explanation to Nori. When he relayed all the details of what the dwarves knew of Fading, and that it was supposed to only happen to elves. That elves were the only race that it was known to happen to. That he’d looked and looked and all he could come up with was that Bilbo was related to the elves in some way, that Bilbo had to have elvish blood.

It made sense. When Nori looked back on it, that Hobbits and Elves were related. All that greenery nonsense and their ability to blend in with nature. Then there was Bilbo’s abilities with plants and animals that weren’t wargs. Only other beings he’d heard of with that sort of power were the elves. What with their nature loving sneaky ways.

Nori would have told any stranger that he didn’t have a heart in his chest. Nori didn’t have to tell his family that he had one, and that he did give a damn about the people who mattered to him.

Bilbo mattered to Nori. It gave him quiet fury at knowing that Bilbo was dying, was going to wither away because the blasted hobbit felt too much for two particularly thick headed fools. That there were rules and laws most dwarves wouldn’t dare dream of breaking. Unfortunately Nori knew Thorin and Bofur were amongst them.

It was strange, sometimes, to realize that if love showed up on his doorstep he’d take it. Didn’t matter to him if the being was another dwarf. Love came around rarely, true love even less. How could Nori turn it away? He didn’t have much dwarven pride in that regard. Then again, he’d already broken more laws than he could remember (but Dori could, and he could list them in order of date broken) so what was one more?

Too bad Bilbo was only a good friend and confidant.

Now all that really mattered was making sure Thorin and Bofur didn’t accidentally start a war in trying to regain ‘their’ hobbit. They were so possessive of him it sometimes made Nori wonder.

“You know we’re going with them.” Nori casually remarked to his younger brother. Ori turned his head to stare at Nori incredulously.

“We are?”

“Of course. Most of the unwed members of the Company are. Except Balin. He’s staying to make sure Erebor doesn’t get taken over by elves or something while the royal family is gone.”

Ori managed to smile at the mental image that Nori had painted for him. Erebor taken over by elves! He could just imagine them putting potted plants everywhere just to spite the dwarves.

“There’s a good lad. I’m putting you and Dori on hobbit duty as well. Someone needs to make sure the Durins don’t send him to an earlier grave than what he already has.”

Ori’s smile faded as he turned his gaze back on the royal couple, who had just been joined by Fili and Kili. His lips thinned and he got a quiet look of determination.

“I’ll look after him Nori, I promise. He’s family.”

Nori nodded silently in agreement. Yes, Bilbo Baggins was family to them now, and the Clan of ‘Ri guarded its own viciously. Worse than dragons, some would say. A sharp smile curled Nori’s lips at the thought. That’s what they were, dragons. Guarding their chosen treasures jealously and with upmost care, not driven insane by their desires, but cold and reptilian when it came to threats to what they loved.

Hopefully they would not have to turn their fury on their king, but Nori wasn’t holding out too much hope on that.

At least, he mused to himself as he walked over towards the line of Durin, it wouldn’t be as boring as the last time he spent an extended amount of time in Thranduil’s halls.


	4. Unexpected Guests

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And for once the unexpected guests aren't dwarves.

“BILBO BAGGINS COME OUT HERE THIS INSTANT!”

Lobelia Sackville-Baggins was not in a happy mood. Oh no sir. She was quite livid with a certain hobbit who had once lived in Bag End. Her golden curls were piled atop her head in a practical style for travelling halfway across the world in search of her cousin by marriage.

“He’s not going to come out with you screaming like that.” Primula Brandybuck said in a far too reasonable a tone for it to be helpful. Lobelia knew Primula was only doing that to prod her ire into a greater blaze.

“He will very well come out this instant or once we get back to the Shire after all this dratted secret meeting nonsense I will steal his prize winning tomatoes for my own garden.”

It was hard to tell with Lobelia if her threat was idle or sincere. Or if it was idle right now and that later on, in a tiff, if she remembered her words and then it would become sincere. That unpredictability had served the hobbit matron well for years and she wasn’t about to change it now. Especially since some dratted wizard had dragged them out of the Shire and to a place aptly named ‘Mirkwood’.

“He will come out in his own time Mistress Sackville-Baggins and not a moment before.” Gandalf replied with a faint note of censure in his voice.

“He is not a wizard!” Lobelia snapped. “He is a hobbit. A proper gentlehobbit despite all this _adventure_ nonsense.”

“Glad to know that I am still held to high standards.” Bilbo’s voice was dry with humor and Lobelia whirled around to look at Bilbo.

Her mouth had come open, ready to give him a lecture on propriety. The words were on the tip of her tongue before she snapped her mouth shut, the angry flush of her cheeks going pale as Primula made a noise of distress as both hobbit women stared in horror at Bilbo Baggins. Even Gandalf looked shocked, then sad, then older than he’d ever looked before.

It wasn’t that it was anything noticeable to men’s eyes or even dwarves. Those two races were, sadly, farther from the Valar and Maiar than hobbits and elves were. They were most especially far from Yavanna, the Green Lady, and Mother of all Hobbits. They couldn’t see the bright light inside Bilbo dimming, they couldn’t feel in their bones the sickness in his veins.

To eyes that were not hobbits or elves or maiar Bilbo Baggins looked much as he always had, perhaps a bit thinner and eyes a tad older, but essentially the same.

To eyes that were of the aforementioned groups Bilbo Baggins had begun dying.

There was only a handful of minutes where the newly arrived hobbits and wizard stared at Bilbo before they managed to gather themselves. Primula darted forward and practically tackled Bilbo to the ground, her hands grasping onto his vest to help anchor herself to him. Lobelia wasn’t far behind, except hers was a more dignified pace as she came to the hobbit she considered her best friend. She smacked him smartly upside the head before tugging Bilbo (and Primula by proxy) into her arms. She held onto the hobbit.

Bilbo Baggins. Stupidly kindhearted dependable Bilbo. Bilbo Baggins who never failed to be polite to her. Bilbo Baggins who had run through the meadows and fields with her full of laughter and mischief. Bilbo Baggins who had started the never ending prank war between them when they were tweens that carried on to this day. (Oh how he was going to be so mad that she’d ‘auctioned’ off his belongings all over the Shire and how he was going to have to chase everything down, except he wasn’t going to do that was he? She was going to have to send a letter to Lotho to round everything up and put it back in its place.) Bilbo Baggins who had taken Lotho under his wing when Otho had fallen ill, teaching the boy his letters because his parents could not, telling Lotho so many wonderful stories to give him light during the dark times. Bilbo Baggins who had gently had his arm around her shoulder as she’d sobbed into his neck when they returned Otho’s body to Yavanna at the edge of the Old Forest and planted a tree over his grave. Bilbo Baggins who had always been so stupidly responsible, who had almost always ignored his wants and wishes over what must be done.

Lobelia knew Bilbo was almost as important to young Primula as he was to her. She knew Bilbo had always kept his door open for Primula to come running in in all her Brandybuck mischievous glory. How he ‘lectured’ her on her trick playing, somehow always managing to scold her and give her tips on how to be sneakier and cleverer.

It broke their hearts seeing Bilbo, beloved Bilbo Baggins, start to Fade. It was still in the beginning stages, but it was clear enough to any with eyes to see it that it was happening.

“Stupid, stupid hobbit.” Lobelia whispered fiercely tightening her grip for a moment. Then she straightened herself up, fixed her travelling dress and stared at Bilbo.

“Well what are you doing standing around for? We’ve come all this way on the Thain’s behalf to see what mischief your Took side has gotten you in to. Far too much, I must say. Now start acting like the Baggins you are and show us to our quarters.” Lobelia snapped.

Primula made a little noise of irritation. Untangling herself from Bilbo she was about to start another fight with Lobelia before she glanced around the room. There were so many strangers here. It wouldn’t be good to be airing out any of Bilbo’s business where all could see it. She may be a Brandybuck but she had some sense in her.

“I will, as soon as I know where your rooms will be. I can’t say that we were expecting you two. I’m certain Thranduil would have mentioned it to me if hobbits were coming.”

“I invited them, or shall I say, I invited them after half the Shire dragged me to the Thain’s residence and threatened rather unwholesome things to my person if I did not tell them what was going on. Then they had the gall to tell me I was not telling them the entire truth of the matter and sent representatives that could not be swayed by my ‘silver tongue’ and who could see to the Shire’s business on this whole secret meeting. I must say hobbits are better interrogators and truth finders than any other race I’ve known when they put their mind to it.” The sadness hadn’t quite left Gandalf’s face, but there was genuine amusement in his demeanor as he recalled exactly how two hobbits had come on the journey with him to Mirkwood.

Bilbo couldn’t stop the fond huff of laughter that escaped him as he looked at Lobelia and Primula. He could agree with the Thain’s decision on picking those two. The only beings he could imagine that could out stubborn those two were members of the Line of Durin. Both hobbit ladies held themselves a bit higher, knowing that they had been picked for their renowned stubbornness in all matters of life.

“Bilbo, we’ve found some rooms for them. If you don’t mind I think the rooms close to yours would be an excellent choice.” Legolas spoke as he came up to the group of hobbits. His dark eyes were warm as he bowed gracefully at the two newcomers. “Welcome to Mirkwood, Mistress Hobbits. I am Legolas, youngest son of King Thranduil, and it is a pleasure to have more of your folk in these halls.”

Lobelia eyed Legolas for a moment, measuring him. A glance at Bilbo told her that this elf was to be trusted and was not, in fact, the reason for his Fading. She warmed ever so slightly towards him as she and Primula executed curtsies in perfect unison.

“The pleasure is ours to be here, Master Legolas.” Lobelia’s tone was unfailingly polite as she spoke to him. Turning to Bilbo her eyes held a spark of mischief that only he would be able to see. “It’s good to see that someone here has manners.”

“Quite right you are at that, Lobelia.” Bilbo remarked dryly once more. “I have renounced my Baggins name and have decided to take on my mother’s maiden one. What with all the adventuring I’ve been doing I’ve become a hedonistic degenerate, having swapped my moral compass for a real one.”

Lobelia did not smile at Bilbo’s sass. She did not. The curl of her lip was a grimace at his distasteful humor and Primula’s shocked laughter. She was not laughing, she was simply having a horrible coughing fit over the shock of his words.

Bilbo, the rascal he was, situated himself between Lobelia and Primula, taking both of their arms. Smiling at Legolas he nodded his thanks at the prince before leading the hobbits down through the winding corridors of Mirkwood’s palace to the rooms that Legolas had set aside for their unexpected guests.

When they got to the privacy of Bilbo’s rooms after being shown where they would stay the three hobbits grew quiet as they all took oversized chairs and sat in front of the fire.

“Who knows?” Lobelia asked, always a pragmatist at heart even during her wilder youth.

“The elves do and I think one of the men have guessed. Strider is his name and he is one of the Dunedain so he’s more perceptive than most men, and he’s rather close with the Rivendell elves. The men of Gondor have not noticed, they barely pay attention to me at all. The dwarves of the Iron Hills haven’t but they’re dwarves, so that goes without saying. I don’t know if the Erebor dwarves will notice, they haven’t arrived yet. Thranduil only sent the rider to fetch them. As for the men of Dale I can’t say either, for they’re likely to come with the party from Erebor.” Bilbo barely kept in check his desire to pull his knees up to his chest and hug them.

“Does the…one who rejected you know?” Primula was a tad more delicate than Lobelia in her manners.

A tired smile graced Bilbo’s face as he shook his head. “No, they do not.”

“’They’? My you did have quite an adventure.” Primula’s smile was a bit strained as she tried to grasp for humor in such a moment. Lobelia could tell she wished for a proper cup of tea, Lobelia wished for a proper cup of tea….with perhaps a splash of something that wasn’t tea but that could help calm her now frayed nerves. “But Bilbo, if they don’t know about your predicament then how do you know they rejected you?”

“Well I think it was the fact that they’re dwarves and that they married each other is what tipped me off to the rejection.”

Primula winced, even though Bilbo’s tone hadn’t been heated. Dwarves. Lobelia had suspected it had been a dwarf. Bilbo certainly knew how to make a fine mess of things, falling for two dwarves. Dwarves were renowned for their celibacy and Lobelia knew that it would be an impossible task to get them to even consider Bilbo romantically now. Even if Bilbo wasn’t a hobbit and had in fact been a comely dwarven lass there wouldn’t have been a chance. It hurt to know that there would be no way to save him.

“Will they be coming to this secret meeting as well?” Lobelia managed to find her words. It wouldn’t do to coddle Bilbo and shower him with words of sorrow. All she could do was treat him as she always had, as her dearest friend that had a tendency to make monumentally bad decisions.

“Yes. I’d be surprised if they didn’t. Considering that they’re King and Consort Under the Mountain.”

Primula whistled, impressed that Bilbo had managed to fall so deeply for a king. Lobelia shot the Brandybuck a scathing look and debated on whether or not she could get away with throwing the pillow beside her at the other hobbit.

“Well we’ll take care of you then.” Lobelia sniffed. “They will not find out the true nature of what is happening from us. Will they Primula?” Levelling a dark gaze at Primula the young Brandybuck lass tilted her head up and looked down at Lobelia as best she could.

“They’ll have an easier time finding out what the secret recipe to my moonshine is than learning Bilbo’s secrets.”

“That’s a secret no one wants to know.” Lobelia replied. “It’s barely consumable. I use it to clean particularly nasty messes around my smial or serve it to guests I don’t wish to visit me ever again.”

“Hey! My moonshine is legendary stuff!”

“Legendarily horrible. Tales will be told of it for generations to come as a warning to all that you’d best be polite or you host will serve you Primula Brandybuck’s moonshine.”

Bilbo began to relax as Lobelia and Primula traded insults back and forth. Primula was at quite the disadvantage, only having reached her maturity in the last couple of years while Lobelia was the same age as Bilbo and had quite a bit more time to hone her tongue into a fearsome weapon. Lobelia watched Bilbo out of the corner of her eye, feeling a bit of relief as he relaxed in their presence one more. She knew the sound of bickering hobbits was a familiar sound to remind him of home. Lobelia could not bring herself to go over and cuddle Bilbo, she could not make the first move with that, and in fact her initiating a hug in the Entrance Hall had been quite out of character. But it had been an extraordinary circumstance.

No, this was how she could give comfort to her best friend. Manipulating Primula into a petty squabble that was so hobbitish that it would remind Bilbo nothing of dwarves or Fading. It would remind him of green rolling hills and the complicated simplicity of Shire life and politics. It would remind him of his cozy smial and the lazy afternoons they had spent together squabbling much like this, without any heat or real anger and more an attempt to hone their own wits.

And when he drifted off Lobelia disengaged Primula from their battle and fetched a blanket. Covering Bilbo up she kept her expression neutral as she guided Primula out of Bilbo’s rooms, both moving as silently as hobbits could to let Bilbo rest.


	5. Truths Are Found and Hidden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You'll laugh while you cry. Also Beorn makes me think of the Kool Aid man.

“BILBO!”

It would have been a cry of elation, except it was more of a roar. Bilbo had frozen in the great hall, much like a deer when they had realized a wolf had set them in their sights. Except it was no wolf he was facing. It was, in fact, eleven dwarves that were all rushing towards him like a pack of wargs.

There was only a faint noise of distress that came out of the back of his throat. Really he should move, get out of the tidal wave of sweaty travel weary dwarves, but pain, happiness, and fear had combined and frozen him in place. He could only stand and wait to be crushed.

 

Lobelia growled, her umbrella out before her like a sword. She placed herself between Bilbo and the oncoming dwarves like a mother bear would protect her cubs. The dwarves barely heard her or even recognized a hobbit that was not their hobbit had placed herself between them and Bilbo and was bristling with fury.

They did take notice when she began to beat them back with her umbrella viciously.

“Ow! Ow!”

“Fili! A hobbit is hitting us!”

“Ma emma harel!” Lobelia snapped.

“A _crazy_ hobbit is hitting us!”

“Cease and desist woman! I am King Under- OW! Mahal!”

“She’s just a wee thing she can’t be hittin-OW LASS STOP! She cracked me shin!”

And Bilbo wanted to stop her from beating the line of Durin with nothing but her umbrella but he couldn’t. The other dwarves had stopped their rush when they heard the sounds of battle, but they too were frozen at the sight of seeing a tiny golden haired hobbit woman besting their King, his Consort, and his nephews with an umbrella spewing what could only be insults. Even the elves were frozen at the sight, Thranduil even had a look of sheer unadulterated amusement watching the feisty hobbit break Thorin Oakenshield’s nose.

“Lobelia Sackville- Baggins nee Bracegirdle you will stop your assault on these dwarves immediately!” Gandalf was the only one who had his senses, or perhaps had been the only one to regain them quickly enough to intervene before Lobelia managed to assassinate the royal family.

Lobelia glanced at Gandalf and took in his massive size and darkness with the most unimpressed look she could level towards the wizard. She carefully let her umbrella down and tapped it against the stone floor. She tilted her head up and looked down her nose with all the haughtiness she could muster (and Bilbo would have bet she may have just put Thranduil to shame) and sniffed.

“They were going to attack Bilbo. If anyone is going to hurt him it’s me. No dwarves, no matter how solid their ties to royalty, may take the kill I claimed years ago. And by judging how many scars he now has I am quite due to the right to take it out of their hides. Especially since I recognize this one. He was skulking in my garden the night before Bilbo disappeared. He trampled my petunias. Are we certain he’s a king, Gandalf? He looks no less shady now than he did then. Covered in bruises and blood.”

“I can assure you he is King Under the Mountain.” Gandalf said sternly, his grey brows furrowing in irritation.

“Oh well, apparently royal blood is not what it used to be.” Lobelia sighed, quite ignoring the murderous glare that Thorin was directing at her and the all too amused look Nori was bestowing on her. Turning she wrapped a possessive arm around Bilbo’s shoulders and began to herd him away. “You really need to watch yourself, Bilbo. Now off with you! Shoo! Shoo! I will not let you anywhere near Bilbo until you have all been properly bathed. He is a proper gentlehobbit and there will be no _touching_ until you are all clean and there will be _inspections_ before I let you close.”

It was perhaps the sheer audacity of her words and manner that kept the dwarves too stunned to even make rebuttals on their state of cleanliness. They’d all be lying if they said they were clean and Bilbo could suspect that they all had a keen self-preservation instinct now in regards to Lobelia. Then before the dwarves could protest and perhaps try to convince Lobelia to let Bilbo into the baths with them, the two hobbits had disappeared in the crowd of elves and men.

They managed to safely escape the great hall before Bilbo finally lost it. His laughter was joyous and hysterical. He could barely breathe as he doubled over.

“Lobelia! You…You broke his nose! You cracked Bofur’s shin! I should be cross with you. But their faces, by the Valar their faces were priceless.” Then Bilbo was breathless as he turned and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her neck. He was trembling despite the giggles he was still plagued with and Lobelia sighed as she wrapped her arms around him in turn. “Thank you. I…I thought I could handle it but I couldn’t. Not with all of them rushing towards me.”

“Well you’ll have time to collect yourself.”

“And we’ll be protecting you.” Bilbo wasn’t even startled when he heard Nori’s voice. He could feel Lobelia tensing up at the intrusion and he carefully let go of her and turned around. Nori, Ori, and Dori stood in the hallway. Ori was playing with the edges of his cardigan, looking between Lobelia and Bilbo. Dori looked to be caught between disapproving of Lobelia and concern over Bilbo. Nori was smirking at Lobelia his eyes casually running up and down her form.

“What do you mean ‘protecting’ him?” Lobelia asked suspiciously, her hand tightening on the handle of her umbrella.

“We can’t make them love you.” Nori looked at Bilbo. “But we can make things easier on you. I’ll help distract the royal family, in fact I think you’ve got all the elves helping me out on that. Ori and Dori will spend time with you and your attack hobbit, keep you company, and give you spare dwarves to help watch out for the others. Don’t know much ‘bout this Fading business except what Ori learned in books, but since you left Erebor I figured that you wanted distance to die with some dignity and probably extend your life.”

“How…?” Bilbo was almost at a loss for words.

Ori couldn’t contain himself any longer. He moved away from his brothers and ignored the ferocious glare Lobelia sent him as he wrapped Bilbo up in a hug. Ori smelt like Erebor, smelt like the second home he’d had before he’d run. He smelt like metal and rocks and sweaty dwarf. But it wasn’t just the scent of Erebor that had Bilbo holding onto Ori with the same strength that Ori was holding onto him. It was the scent of parchment, ink, wood, and dust. It was the scent of Ori. Sweet Ori who he had spent hours with helping to restore books and documents (the ones in Westron and Sindarin at least).

“You’re silly if you can think that anything’s a secret from Nori in Erebor.” Ori’s voice was thick with emotion.

“Aye, I heard you and the Golden Git talking. That’s how I found out. Since I didn’t know a single thing about what you two were talking about I figured I’d give Thorin and the others the wrong directions about which path to Mirkwood you took.” Nori shrugged with an insincere smile on his face. He reached forward and placed his hand on top of Bilbo’s head, a gesture of affection typical of the spymaster.

Ori leaned back a little and gently brought his forehead to Bilbo’s. They held it for a moment, words escaping Bilbo while Lobelia (he was certain) kept her words to herself. Then Ori was replaced by Dori, who carefully brought their foreheads together as well. The grumpy dwarf fussed with Bilbo’s jacket, making sure it once again lay primly on the hobbit’s shoulders.

“When you’re closer…to it. To the End, do you think…could you tell us? So we can come? We want you to have family with you.” Ori’s voice was hesitant and pleading.

“Of course Ori….I’d always planned to call the Company together when it was time. When one reaches closer to the end of the Fading the hobbit in question knows and can usually have some time to say the final goodbye before the Waking Dream begins.” Bilbo’s voice was soft. He had planned on letting the Company know, had even spoken with Thranduil and Legolas to make them aware of his wishes should he be taken by surprise. They were to let the Company come when it was Time.

“Would you have told me, Bilbo?” Lobelia’s voice was quiet but filled with censure. The hobbit looked at his oldest friend with wide eyes, unsure of where her insecurity lay but could tell it was present.

“Lobelia by the time you get back to the Shire you will have a letter in your mailbox telling you what’s happening and asking you to please come here.”

Bilbo watched as her insecurity faded and the surety and strength filled her eyes. He smiled as he watched her straighten herself out, dust her skirts and look at the dwarves.

“Well thank you for your kind offer, we gratefully accept it. Now it is time to stop blubbering in the hallway where anyone can see us. Dinner will be served shortly, if Thranduil is keeping to the schedule he has set for the last few days. So go, wash up, and I will give you directions to where Bilbo, Primula, and I are staying during dinner.”

“There’s another hobbit?” Nori raised his braided eyebrow at Bilbo and Lobelia while Ori scrubbed his face with the sleeves of his cardigan. Dori was glancing around cautiously wondering where the third hobbit was hiding.

“Yes, Primula Brandybuck, she’s my cousin, distant cousin. She’s probably in the training yard with young Strider. He’s been teaching her swordplay. Lobelia will let her know that you’re to be trusted.”

Bilbo watched as the brothers of Clan ‘Ri nodded. They all watched Bilbo for a moment longer before turning and returning from the way they had come. When they were out of sight Bilbo smiled and scrubbed a hand to his face.

“Those three seem like a decent lot. You seem pretty attached to the youngest.” Lobelia commented.

“They are. All the dwarves are good people and dear to me or else I wouldn’t have chosen to remain in Erebor for the last five years. Ori though, I love him as much as I love you. He’s the one who stayed by my side in Erebor, always helping me when the others were too busy or had to deal with their families. I can’t tell you how many sleepless nights we’ve spent together talking over everything and nothing. He is my dearest friend next to you.”

Lobelia made a noise in the back of her throat as she guided Bilbo back to his rooms to hide him away until dinnertime. Which wouldn’t be long, they both knew.

“Well I will be pleased to make their acquaintance, even if I do manage to devour their souls.”

“Oh I’m not too worried. I’m quite certain you’d spit them back out before too much permanent damage is sustained.”

They both smiled at each other and settled down. Trading insults back and forth, sharpening their tongues for what they assumed was going to be an interesting dinner. As far as Bilbo knew all those who had been summoned to the Council (and a few that hadn’t) had showed up now. It would be entertaining to see what Thranduil was going to do to irk the dwarves, he couldn’t play the same prank that Elrond had by not giving the dwarves any meat. The dwarves would notice the snub if they weren’t served any and the men were, while the men would complain and draw attention to the fact that there had been meat aplenty before the Erebor dwarves had arrived.

When dinnertime came Bilbo mentally braced himself for it and Lobelia stood stanchly at his side. They had made their way to the great dining hall and Bilbo saw Primula sitting by Strider and catty corner to Lady Arwen, drawn into an animated conversation with them. She had left a space next to her open as well as the spot next to it. Bilbo and Lobelia exchanged a glance before they began to make their way to where Primula was.

He had almost taken his seat, having held the chair out for Lobelia, when he was hauled up like a sack of potatoes. An undignified squeak escaped him as he was stolen away from Lobelia and Primula.

“OUR HOBBIT!” Bilbo heard Fili and Kili cry out possessively to Lobelia as they scurried across the room to where the dwarves of Erebor had been seated. Bilbo was unceremoniously dumped into a seat by Fili as Kili latched onto him while the dwarven princes took their seat.

“Aha caught our wayward hobbit from the blasted weed eaters!” Gimli’s voice was bright with merriment as he looked over Bilbo with a barely concealed glance of satisfaction. “Good job.”

The seat in front of him was quickly claimed by Ori, preventing Thorin or Bofur (who had not arrived yet at the table) from taking it. Nori took the spot next to Ori and Dori sat next to him. He smiled gratefully at Ori who smiled back, looking for all the world to be happy to have claimed the seat across from his best friend who he hadn’t seen for months.

Bilbo couldn’t help his gaze sliding from Ori’s face back to across the room where Strider was physically restraining Lobelia from launching herself across the room and killing the dwarven princes who had Bilbo sandwhiched between them. The hobbit had to commend Fili and Kili on their courageous stupidity, stealing him from right underneath Lobelia’s nose. When he glanced at the princes he groaned at their twin shit eating grins and finger wiggling waves they were giving Lobelia. Covering his face with his hands he wondered just how long they were going to be able to survive and guessed that by dessert came around the line of Durin was going to be broken.

It wouldn’t surprise Bilbo if Lobelia would have been able to do it when Azog couldn’t.

The thought of the massive pale orc brought a shadow to his face, being taken back quite unwillingly to the Battle of Five Armies. Bilbo could smell it now, the stench of death and orc. He could hear the swords and maces clanging together. Then he could see Azog felling Kili who had jumped in front of Thorin, then Fili who had tried to come to his brother’s aid. They had lain together in a bleeding heap boneless heap as Thorin and Bilbo had cried out in terrified rage. Thorin had been closer, fighting against Azog like a beserker. This time though, when Azog brought Thorin to his knees there was no oak branch to save him. No, there was only death at the hands of this twisted creature. Then Bilbo was moving, small and unseen, just like he had done before.

Though this time Azog did not have the benefit of being on his warg. Azog had not had the luck of sending another orc to do his dirty work. And this time Bilbo did not have enough in him to even let Azog know he was there.

He had hamstrung the orc, just like Nori had taught him to. Without thinking or pausing, because Nori had taught him to let his instincts think for him, Bilbo shoved his sword where Azog’s heart would be. The great orc had fallen back, then, falling back and onto Bilbo just as a mighty roar had echoed across the battlefield. Bilbo knew no more after that for quite some time after that. The nex-

He was drawn out of his memories by Kili’s finger mercilessly poking at his side. Turning wide haunted eyes to the younger prince Kili gave Bilbo a bright grin.

“You haven’t listened to a word we’ve said, have you Mister Boggins?” Kili’s voice was teasing as he slung an arm over Bilbo’s shoulder. Kili was alive, Kili was whole, Kili wasn’t dead. The mantra grew longer as he added Fili’s names and the names of all the members of the company.

Ori’s eyes were worried and he carefully deposited all the green vegetables that Dori had slipped onto his plate onto Bilbo’s. Warmth began to seep into his chilled body at the sight, realizing that Ori probably hadn’t eaten any sort of green food since Bilbo had left Erebor. He’d have to remedy that soon, he had scheduled a visit to the kitchen tomorrow in the nebulous ‘after the Council’ time where he knew he’d need the comforting reprieve of cooking. Cooking for Ori just made it more comforting, knowing his food was going to help someone.

That Ori was also caring for him helped make him relax.

It wasn’t so bad, being between Fili and Kili. The princes knew all too well what could accidentally happen with some warriors, but most especially Bilbo. They knew the look of when he’d fallen back into the darker memories of their journey, and weren’t going to press the hobbit now for information about why he’d left. They’d ask when he was stronger, when they were certain they weren’t going to accidentally send him back into his memories.

Dinner passed as peacefully as it could considering he was surrounded by dwarves. Bofur and Thorin had ended up being herded to the head of the great table with all the other ‘important’ people. Bilbo sent Thranduil a grateful smile at being saved.

It was halfway through dinner when another unexpected guest arrived.

Beorn burst into the dining hall with little to no warning at all. The massive shapeshifter stared at all the people gathered and grinned. Bowing slightly at Thranduil the shapeshifter almost looked abashed.

“Sorry I’m late! Had some trouble with some orcs.” Beorn’s voice echoed in the hall, filling the space completely.

“I hope all went well then. You’ve arrived just in time for dinner, Master Beorn. You may choose where you’d like to sit or where you find room.” Thranduil’s reply was neutral. There was no animosity between the elvenking and Beorn but neither was there friendship.

Beorn looked around for a minute before his eyes rested on Bilbo. The hobbit tried to sink down but it was far far too late.

“LITTLE BUNNY!”

The giant strode over to where the dwarves were at. The shapeshifter made Gimli scoot further down the bench while he carefully situated himself. It took about five minute of maneuvering before the massive man finally got himself somewhat comfortably seated.

“It has been far too long since you have visited me! You are looking…” Then Beorn trailed off and all his good cheer drained away. Reaching out his hand he carefully touched Bilbo’s cheek, tilting the hobbit’s head up then down then side to side, inspecting him without so much as a ‘by your leave’. Bilbo knew that Beorn rarely asked and submitted himself to Beorn’s searching gaze.

“What happened Little Bunny?” Beorn couldn’t be subtle if he tried. The concern in his gaze was as warming as the skinchanger’s words were irritating. Bilbo could feel panic beginning to well up and he tried to open his mouth to tell Beorn to _shut up_.

“What do you mean ‘what happened’? Bilbo’s fine, except for his recent escape from Erebor.” Fili frowned at Beorn.

“Fine? You call being sick and dying, ‘fine’ Master dwarf?” Beorn’s voice was a low rumbling growl that made all the hairs on Bilbo’s arms stand up.

“’Sick and dying’? Bilbo isn’t ‘sick and dying’, are you? Is that why you left? To go to the elves for healing? Bilbo why didn’t you say so?” Kili’s voice now had an edge of panic and the world was beginning to spin dangerously. It felt much like it had the time he was trussed up in a sack about to be eaten by trolls.

“Because I didn’t want you to see me waste away.” Bilbo swallowed thickly. “I had suspected that I had inherited this particular disease during the wedding preparations, but I could not go to the dwarven healers to make sure because hobbits are very secretive about this sort of thing. There’s not even a proper name for it in Westron. Thranduil noticed it during the feast, he had seen it before, during the time when my people were wanderers. He took me because he wished to slow it down and make it easier. If you knew what was happening you’d have made me stay and I couldn’t bare that.”

Kili looked heartbroken while Ori stared down at the tabletop. Nori’s jaw was clenched and he was shooting daggers through his eyes at Beorn. Fili looked desparate.

“Erebor’s got a huge library! One of the best in the entirety of Middle Earth. Give us the name and we’ll look for a cure! Bilbo _please_.”

Scrubbing a hand over his face Bilbo wished the ground would swallow him whole. Beorn was giving him a measured look, trying to figure out why Bilbo wasn’t telling the entire truth. Then light dawned in the shapeshifter’s dark eyes and his lips thinned as he glanced around the hall, obviously wondering which dwarf had rejected him.

“Uthenera. The disease is called Uthenera.”

“Ooth-en-ERR-ah?” Kili’s voice was watery as he repeated the word. “Does it mean anything in hobbitish?”

“Its meaning was lost long ago. Uthenera is Uthenera, all hobbits have a chance to die from it. It isn’t a common death anymore but it happens enough to…well it’s a disease no one forgets.” Bilbo knew the translation, knew that there was a word for it in Westron. It was how the brothers ‘Ri had found out, but he wanted to spare Fili and Kili the knowledge of what it really was. He wanted them to accept as best they could that his death was an inevitable happenstance, that nothing could have prevented it. He didn’t want them to have even a single shred of resentment towards Thorin or Bofur. Bilbo had none. He wanted them to have as happy a life as they could lead, he wanted them to be unburdened by regret or the knowledge that they had accidentally killed him by being happy.

Thorin and Bofur had not had enough comfort and happiness in their life. Bilbo was not going to stain even a single moment of it if he could prevent it.

“That’s why the crazy hobbit lady attacked us. She knew.”

“Lobelia isn’t insane Kili.” Bilbo felt a fond smile twitching at his lips even as he felt so tired and sad.

“She spoke gibberish and hit us.”

“She didn’t speak gibberish, she spoke hobbitish and hit you.” Bilbo corrected.

“I know, in theory, hobbitish exists but I’d never heard it before until today. I’ve only ever heard hobbits speaking in Westron.” Ori, dear precious Ori was trying to steer the conversation into safer waters. Bilbo would have sent the scribe a grateful look if he could muster up the energy to.

“That’s because we guard our language just as you guard yours, except we usually don’t tell people we have a secret language and very very rarely do we use it in front of others. Lobelia was simply quite angry when she spoke it earlier.”

“Oh…so you won’t teach it to us?” Fili interjected looking like a hurt puppy.

“No, not unless you teach me Khuzdul.” Bilbo replied.

It quieted Fili long enough for Bilbo to look around at his now somber companions. Looking at Beorn, then at the brothers ‘Ri, Bilbo swallowed.

“I’m sorry. I have to go. I’ll see you tomorrow, I promise. I’m not…not yet. I’m only in the beginning stages. I just need to be alone.” Getting up from the table Bilbo left, grateful that Fili and Kili didn’t try to stop him. He wasn’t blind as he left the Dining Hall, but he was numb. Blissfully numb while he half stumbled down the passageways he’d memorized.

He’d barely made it into his room when two familiar and welcome figures let themselves inside without permission. It was instinctual, when he turned to Lobelia and clung to her as he had done when they were young children. He hadn’t realized he’d started crying until he felt the dampness of his face when he pressed his head into her shoulder. His breathing was erratic and he hiccupped as he tried to choke back a sob.

“T-they know. They know I’m dying. Beorn let it slip because he didn’t know at first what was happening or why I was keeping it secret. I didn’t want them to know right now! I didn’t want them to be hurt. They’re hurting, they’re all hurting because of me. I don’t want to hurt them. Lobelia help me stop hurting them.”

He felt a soothing hand in his hair. It wasn’t Lobelia’s, not unless she’d suddenly grown an extra arm. He tried to hide further in Lobelia, who was holding him once again. If he wasn’t so upset he’d have pointed out jokingly that they’d hugged more times in the last five day than they had in the last twenty years. Lobelia wasn’t one for physical affection like normal hobbits were, she was, in fact, more in line with dwarven standards of affection.

“Well can you stop loving those two dwarven shitbags?” Lobelia’s voice wasn’t low and comforting, it was an angry snap.

“No.” The answer was immediate, Bilbo didn’t have to think. He knew the answer.

“Well hobbits need food, drink, sun, and Love to live. And like the sun, as it doesn’t have a choice in rising, neither do our hearts choose to Love who we do. It just happens. They can’t give you the love you need to survive so you aren’t going to. It’s far crueler to you to live the full length of a hobbit life starved of what you _need_ to live. That isn’t life. So they’re going to be hurt that you die, but they will move on and survive because they are dwarves and were made to endure such things. We will all survive your passing and the world will continue to exist and babies will still be born and flowers will bloom. We will miss and mourn you but we will go on because we have what we need.”

Primula had moved while Lobelia spoke, wrapping her arms around Bilbo and resting against his back. Comforting Bilbo with her presence. Calming down Bilbo carefully extracted himself from Lobelia. She looked at him, concern and loved for him barely concealed beneath the irritation she wore like her armor. Looking down at her shoulder, where a damp spot where Bilbo’s tears had soaked into the fabric now resided she heaved a put upon sigh.

“Get dressed for bed and drink that foul calming potion and go to sleep. Tomorrow will be the day of the Council and we can’t have the other races looking down on us for looking slovenly and ill rested.”

“Lobelia they’re going to look down at us regardless of what Bilbo looks like tomorrow. The only way they’ll look us in the eye or even up to us is if we stood on a chair.”

“Primula!” Lobelia’s groan was long suffering. “Stop making jokes about our height.”

“You opened the door for that one, so don’t even try to be angry when I walked in.” Primula sassed back.

He was grateful that his two friends were staying in his room to make sure he did as Lobelia said. Bilbo knew Primula chafed under Lobelia’s iron fisted control, but the Brandybuck wasn’t sure how to handle the situation. Bilbo was more like her older brother than her equal and she floundered ever so slightly when trying to deal with him. Both hobbit lasses were focused on their argument, giving Bilbo privacy as he changed his clothes. When he was done he saw Lobelia watching him out of the corner of her eye as he went to the nightstand beside his bed. Taking a small bottle of the light green calming potion he held it out, letting Lobelia see he had grabbed a full one before he tilted his head back and drank the entire thing. He winced and grimaced at the taste, smacking his tongue against the top of his mouth lick a cat who had tasted something foul.

Nodding in approval Lobelia turned aside from her argument with Primula and said a curt: “Goodnight Bilbo.” Before beginning to herd Primula out of the room. The younger hobbit turned and flashed Bilbo a sad smile before echoing Lobelia’s sentiment in a kinder tone.

Climbing up into the bed Bilbo grasped for the well-worn piece of brown cloth with one hand as he tugged Thorin’s coat over him with the other. Burrowing down he clung to the two pieces of make believe comfort he had and waited for the potion to pull him into a deep dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos to anyone who can figure out, without googling, what hobbitish really is.


	6. Dreams Can Be Very Real Things Or Maybe They're Just Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm not going to name names, but someone is probably going to be sleeping on the couch for the next year or so til this whole Ring business is dealt with.

Bilbo wakes up long before he should. He knows that. The world is far too hazy and pleasant for him to have woken all on his own. Yet he did. He is awake and he can guess that it is not dawn, perhaps an hour or two away, by the darkness outside his window. Grey green eyes blink sleepily for a moment before he is up and out of his bed and walking out the door without even getting a proper housecoat.

Is it a song that he is following? Bilbo can’t say for certain what it is, but it is luring him through Thranduil’s halls and out, outside, where the gardens lay.

He finds himself in a patch of grass and flowers underneath a tree. A welcoming place, one where he could curl up happily and go back to sleep. Yet there is something else. Something like a song or a whisper on the wind that keeps him awake in the garden.

“Beautiful evening isn’t it?”

There is a voice that would have startled him if he wasn’t still heavily under the influence of the calming draught that Thranduil had given him. He feels much like a newborn kitten, exhausted and confused, but filled with wonder and curiosity as to what exactly was happening. It is a good voice, Bilbo decides. It is a gentle voice that reminds him of his father, if his father had been female. He realizes that he’s taken a little bit longer than is proper to reply to the nice voice.

“It is.”

It is the truth. Despite the chill in the air, Bilbo can see the sky here. It is a blanket of dark blue with twinkling stars. Some of them are white, others almost reddish, and even others blue. Bilbo prefers the stars in the heavens to gems or gold, for the stars are alive wheras gems and gold are not, stars are helpful in finding one’s way when lost where gems and gold just tend to make people lost to begin with. No Bilbo likes the stars, but he likes flowers so much more and all the good green things that are alive.

Then he sees her. An elf, because she is slender and ethereal and humans can’t ever be that aged in their eyes with such a young face. She is the most beautiful elf he has ever seen, which surprises him because he had thought that Arwen held that title quite firmly. This elf, who he has never seen before, is different than most he’s ever seen. She has the bearing of the high elves but there’s something else, a gleam of mischief in her green eyes even as she seems to be troubled by something. This elf reminds him a bit more, now that he sees her, like his mother. She has golden hair that is curly. Not what elves usually call curly, but what a good hobbit would describe as proper curls that are barely tamed by the intricate braids woven in her hair.

She comes to him and kneels down. Touching his cheek she looks so sad. Lots of elves look sad when they look at him now, and their sad faces are hard enough to deal with. Bilbo doesn’t know what seeing the sad faces of his family of the heart will do to him.

“I am so, so, sorry Bilbo.”

Bilbo can’t help but blink at her, feeling sad that he has made her sad. Has he disappointed her somehow?

“Oh no, _no_ you did nothing wrong, da’len.”

She is soothing him and he feels better because of it. He can trust her, he knows it in his heart.

“My husband is a prideful idiot and he is the one who should be sorry. He will be, I promise you that.” There is a look in her eyes that makes Bilbo very glad that he is not this elf’s husband. It was the same exact look his mother got when she was plotting revenge towards her brothers. It was a look that had inspired horror of anyone who had seen it in the late Belladonna Baggins’ eyes and Bilbo felt pity for whoever had earned her wrath.

“But there are things more important than my stupid secretive husband and his ideas on what should be ‘proper’.” She tapped Bilbo’s nose, making sure his grey green eyes were trained on her (as if they were anywhere else). “So you must listen to me carefully.”

The hobbit nodded his understanding, feeling once more like a fauntling at his mother’s knee right before she imparted some sort of very sage advice to him. Advice that when he remembered it often kept him from getting killed or into too much trouble.

“If you do not do what the others cannot then all you love will wither and die from Sauron’s evil. The line of Durin will be broken, Erebor will be lost, the Shire will burn, and there will be no love, no life, nothing in which good can be found. Sauron knows the weaknesses of Men, of Elves, and of Dwarves by proxy so does his Ring. Yet he does not know you, lethallin, and while it will hurt, what is to come if you choose it, it cannot speak to you. As Morgoth always overlooked and belittled me, so does Sauron overlook you. There is strength in being little, let them underestimate us and we will show them what we’re made of.”

“My Lady.” There is a new voice. Familiar and surprised and Bilbo takes his eyes off the very pretty and very strange elf (he is now suspecting she is most definitely a High Elf, for they are quite knowledgeable and cryptic all at once), looking at the newcomer. It is Gandalf, standing there in his grey robes looking surprised.

“Olorin.” The lady smiles at Gandalf, and Bilbo has to be amused at just how many names the wizard has. It is a new one though, one he finds a measure of comfort in. “I was just about to leave, well after I gave Bilbo a final present. Gift giving is important to hobbits, you know. You spend so much time in Elvhenan it’d be surprising if you didn’t.”

“Shhhhhh don’t say that. He isn’t supposed to know that word.” Bilbo does find it in himself to touch the Lady. Though Lady of what he doesn’t know. He grasps her wrist and she smiles at him full of affection and pride, with more than a little hint of amusement. Amused that he was now noticing her words or amused that he knew she could use them but Gandalf couldn’t.

“Lethallin,” She begins her affection coloring her gentle voice. “He is not fluent in our language but he can speak some, enough to get some help from all the living things. Olorin does not understand it like Aiwendil does, but we can trust him. You can trust him.” Getting Bilbo to let go of her wrists she runs her fingers through his hair soothingly.

“I am awakening your blood, lethallin, I am awakening the blood for both Lobelia and Primula as well. You are all of Old Blood, your vallaslin shows me that you are all mine. You will hear more than just the snatches of whispers from trees and grass and all living things that belong to me. You will hear their voices if you listen to them, learn their stories, hear their wisdom, and speak to them in return. It is the gift I hid within you all at your creation and it is that gift I finally show you.” Leaning down she pressed a kiss to Bilbo’s forehead before she gathered him up in her arms like a child.

He was a grown hobbit! He should be fighting this! Or at least feel his pride being stung, but all he could do was curl closer to her warmth and breathe in her comforting scent.

“Now go back to sleep, Bilbo Baggins. Tomorrow is not going to be a pleasant day.” Nodding at her words he felt his eyes begin to close as he once more drifted into the welcoming darkness of unconsciousness.


	7. The Council Convenes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Fellowship is Formed

The Council met immediately after breakfast. It had been a quiet affair, breakfast. The dwarves of Erebor all in various states of visible distress. They had not, thankfully, insisted that he sit with them for the morning meal. That did not mean that all eyes weren’t glued to him, staring at him with such wretched longing that Bilbo wanted to cry himself. He had not meant to make them hurt, he had not wanted them to be in pain.

Lobelia and Primula had planted themselves beside him and kept him there until the Council was summoned.

Bilbo was startled when he took the seat that had been assigned to him and realized that Thranduil was in fact sitting to the right of Lord Elrond who was standing in the place of honor. The hobbit recognized the strategy, Elrond was on better terms with the rest of Middle Earth than Thranduil. Where Thranduil was hated by the dwarves Elrond was a palatable evil they could listen to. He was highly respected by both men and elves, even Gandalf liked him.

Yet Bilbo couldn’t help but feel some indignation for Thranduil. The elven king had been the first one to discover the Ring’s true nature, he had been the one to summon everyone (save for the hobbits) to deal with the problem. If it wasn’t for Thranduil this would not be happening, it could have been decades or even longer before anyone recognized the identity of his little magic ‘trinket’. Thranduil was owed respect for this, respect Bilbo would gladly give him.

It was necessary though, he could see, to make sure this went as smoothly as possible. So he settled in his seat, keeping his eyes from roaming across the faces of those who were familiar and so very dear to him.

“Strangers from distant lands, friends of old. You have been summoned here to answer the threat of Mordor.” With these words Elrond began the Council. Bilbo felt his heart stuttering in his chest and part of him wished to put his head down, to let his eyes go downwards and not to watch the expressions of others. He would not disgrace his people like that though. Taking strength from Lobelia who sat at his right he turned his gaze to Elrond, making sure to keep his expression neutrally attentive. “Middle-Earth stands upon the brink of destruction. None can escape it. You will unite or you will fall. Each race is bound to this fate — this one doom.”

Elrond gestured to a pedestal, one that sat in the middle of the semi-circle of chairs. It was an elegant movement, but Bilbo could feel the weight of it in his heart.

“Bring forth the Ring, Bilbo.”

With those five words Bilbo could feel every pair of eyes turning from Lord Elrond to him. He flushed uncomfortably, wishing to shrink under the weight of all those stares. He did not, though. Slipping from the chair Bilbo stood on the ground and carefully made his way to the pedestal. He took it out of his pocket, feeling a new peculiar weight to it, before he placed it on the stone. Stepping back he looked to his left.

Thorin’s eyes were trained on him. There was an expression on his face, complex and brooding. Thorin recognized the ring, the magical ring that Bilbo had used to go invisible so many times during their Journey. It had saved them all on multiple occasions. Bilbo had saved them all with its power, but Thorin could see the questions in his eyes. Had Bilbo’s use of the Ring accidentally triggered the disease that was killing him? Had the Journey been to blame? Had Erebor with its lack of knowledge towards hobbits and their biology done something?

“So it is true…”

Thorin’s eyes left Bilbo and the hobbit had already moved back to his seat. He felt relieved now that Thorin’s gaze was no longer on him. Yet that relief was short lived. The shadows seemed to grow longer and darker in the room as everyone, save the hobbits, stared at the Ring.

There was a whisper Bilbo could hear. It wasn’t intelligible though. In fact he had to concentrate on the voice to hear it, like he was once again a fauntling eavesdropping on an important conversation between his elders. Lobelia and Primula also look puzzled. Lobelia’s eyes were narrowed in irritation while Primula’s head was cocked to the side, much like a puppy. The whispers weren’t meant for them to hear or understand, but it seemed that everyone else could. That the whispers were words to them, thoughts, promises of things they wanted.

Bilbo wondered what the Ring was promising Bofur for the dwarf to look so wanting and stricken all at the same time.

A man stood up. His hair was light brown, or had been, before the grey began to take over. His face was aged, a semi-permanent frown made him look even older (and a tad unpleasant).

“Isildur’s Bane has returned.”

His voice was cultured. The Man moved towards the pedestal his face grim, his demeanor reserved, and his eyes seemed so very far away. As if he was seeing something in the distance, a terrible thing, one he could not avoid or stop.

“Denethor!”

Elrond’s voice was sharp and Denethor seemed to regain his senses. His fingers hovered over the Ring. Yet something prevented him from moving.

Gandalf stood and his voice became thunder. Bilbo was reminded of the stone giants, the fear that curled inside his chest, the awe of witnessing a myth come to life, and the knowledge that this was something to be respected as it was to be feared. It was different though, because the thunderous words were made of evil. They were black broken sounds that dripped from Gandalf’s mouth and joined the growing shadows all around the room. Bilbo wanted to curl up and cover his ears against the sound, to forget these terrible things.

Everyone was suitably horrified. Even Lobelia looked uneasy.

“Never before has any voice uttered the words of that tongue in my halls.” Thranduil’s voice was colder than ice, his dark gaze focused on Gandalf who had almost fallen back into his chair.

"I do not ask your pardon, Master Thranduil, for the Black Speech of Mordor may yet be heard in every corner of the West!" Gandalf snapped. “The Ring is altogether evil!” Gandalf’s eyes lay on Denethor as he spoke, his lips pursed into a thin line of irritation.

Denethor took the glare in a stride. Bilbo could feel himself growing impressed with the Man’s ability to ignore the ire of both elves and wizards and still be alive.

“It is a gift. A gift to the foes of Mordor.”

Lobelia snorted at the man’s statement. Primula began to roll her eyes before the hobbit matron elbowed her in the side. No, they were to keep their manners here. They were the representatives of the Shire and this…thing affected them as much as everyone else. Bilbo tried to keep his face neutral, but the faint curl of lips from Thranduil had told the hobbit that at least one person had noticed the hobbits’ actions.

"Why not use this Ring?" Denethor began, looking grim as he stood up once more and began to pace. "Long has my father, the Steward of Gondor, kept the forces of Mordor at bay. By the blood of our people are your lands kept safe! Give Gondor the weapon of the enemy. Let us use it against him!"

"You cannot wield it! None of us can. The One Ring answers to Sauron alone. It has no other master."

Bilbo felt affection bloom for Strider as he spoke. There was a man who had a good head on his shoulders. One who seemed to understand the gravity of the situation. It was no wonder that the Ranger had noticed his Fading, perceptive and of the Old Blood little could probably get by him.

Denethor was not as impressed. In fact he frowned even more deeply, his dark eyes flashing.

“And what would you, Thorongil, know of this matter?”

Thorongil? That was a name Bilbo hadn’t heard before. Perhaps the kind hearted ranger had taken a leaf out of Gandalf’s book? It was a strange name, one that sounded vaguely elvish to his ears.

"This is no mere ranger. He is Aragorn, son of Arathorn. You owe him your allegiance." Legolas had come to Stri-Th…Aragorn’s aid.

Denethor raised his eyebrow at Aragorn, glancing him up and down. There was something…history between these two men, complicated from what Bilbo could tell.

“So this is Isildur’s heir?” The grim man’s voice was faintly mocking.

“And heir to the throne of Gondor.” Legolas added.

Bilbo blinked, turning wide eyes to Aragorn. The man looked agitated at the statement, almost fidgeting as he told Legolas to sit down. A king? Another king without a throne? Bilbo was beginning to wonder if hobbits had a special talent for finding lost kings or if lost kings had a habit of finding hobbits. Aragorn had made certain to spend time with Bilbo, Lobelia, and Primula. Prim had taken to him like a duck to water, trailing after Aragorn and good-naturedly pestering the ranger to teach her how to use a sword or to tell her about his adventures or to spend time with her. Prim loved Lady Arwen almost as much as she did Aragorn and if the hobbit wasn’t with them then she was glued to Bilbo.

“Gondor has no king, Gondor needs no king.” Denethor muttered before he went back to his seat.

“Aragorn is right. We cannot use it.” Gandalf threw his weight behind Aragorn.

"You have only one choice. The Ring must be destroyed." Elrond’s voice was grave.

Bilbo happened to look at Gimli. There was a look in the young dwarf’s eyes that had Bilbo’s eyes widening. _No, no, no, whatever it is you’re thinking please for the love of the Valar do not do it._ It was a lesson learned quickly by Bilbo in the first few months of his journey, a lesson that had proved to be quite helpful. If a dwarf got a particular look in his eye, one that Gimli now sported, a moment of profound warlike stupidity was going to happen.

“Then what are we waiting for?” With a mighty battle cry the dwarf hefted up his axe and rushed the pedestal. The axe came down and shattered on impact, hurling Gimli away. 

Bilbo didn’t stop the pathetic groan that escaped him as his covered his face with his hands. “ _Dwarves_ ” He muttered.

"The Ring cannot be destroyed, Gimli, son of Glóin, by any craft that we here possess. The Ring was made in the fires of Mount Doom. Only there can it be unmade. It must be taken deep into Mordor and cast back into the fiery chasm from whence it came." Thranduil’s voice was dry and mocking. The woodland elf king looked unrepentant even when Elrond sent him a dark glance.

“One of you must do this.” Elrond supplied.

Denethor made a noise of irritation. “One does not simply walk into Mordor. Its black gates are guarded by more than just Orcs. There is evil there that does not sleep. And the great Eye is ever watchful. It is a barren wasteland. Riddled with fire and ash and dust. The very air you breathe is a poisonous fume. Not with ten thousand men could you do this. It is folly!"

"Have you heard nothing Lord Elrond and my father have said? The Ring must be destroyed!"

"And I suppose you think you're the one to do it?!" Gimili sniped at the elven prince.

Then it went downhill from there. Denethor made another snide comment, everyone save the hobbits had jumped up and begun slinging insults back and forth. Underneath the noise Bilbo could hear it, the dark whispers that seemed to fuel the animosity around them. He could feel fire burning the trees and the scent of ash in the air. He could see the world growing darker.

He looked at Thorin who had Bofur by his side and Fili and Kili as his back. The King Under the Mountain was shouting at the elves.

_The line of Durin will be broken, Erebor will be lost, and the Shire will burn._

“I-I will take it!” Bilbo spoke up, barely noticing how Lobelia flinched and Primula stiffened. No one else seemed to have heard him. So taking in another deep breath he shouted. “I WILL TAKE IT!”

He was heard then. A hush began to fall over the crowd and Gandalf seemed to stoop lower, as if resigning himself to something.

“I will take the Ring to Mordor. Though I do not know the way.” Bilbo felt his cheeks flushing as he admitted he wasn’t exactly sure where Mount Doom was. All he knew was that he had to destroy the ring.

“Well it shouldn’t be too hard to find if we get ourselves a reliable map.” Lobelia spoke up, her green eyes daring anyone to tell her otherwise as she stood up and took her spot next to Bilbo.

“And really how hard can it be to find an evil firey mountain?” Primula piped up, her smile cheeky and daring all at once.

The members of the Council looked at the three hobbits in astonishment. Gandalf though was the first non hobbit to react.

"I will help you bear this burden, Bilbo Baggins, as long as it is yours to bear."

Aragorn moved after that, coming to stand in front of Bilbo he kneeled. “If by my life or death, I can protect you, I will. You have my sword.”

“And you have my bow.” Legolas strode forward with all the elegant pride of an elven prince. Yet his eyes were sincere as they were sad as he vowed to protect Bilbo.

“And my axe!” Gimli shouted, not one to be bested by an elf.

"You carry the fate of us all little one. If this is indeed the will of the Council, then Gondor will see it done." Denethor spoke as he came to join the small but growing group.

“Hey! Bilbo’s not going anywhere without me!” Ori’s voice piped up from his hiding place. The young dwarf hurried to the group.

"No indeed, it is hardly possible to separate you even when he is summoned to a secret council and you are not." Elrond said dryly amusement shining in his dark eyes.

Ori flushed under the scrutiny. “I had to record what happened and Fili and Kili are horrible at remembering all the details.” He muttered, hiding partially in his cardigan.

“Wait! We’re coming too!” Fili and Kili cried out together, separating themselves from the dwarves and coming to the group.

“You’d have to send us home tied up in a sack!” Fili said.

Bilbo tried not to smile at the look Lobelia was sending the golden haired prince. He knew she was sorely tempted to.

“Anyway you need people of intelligence on this mission, quest… thing.” Kili’s chest was puffed out, full of endearing bravado.

“Well that rules you out Kili.” Fili said as he nudged his brother. It took a moment for Kili to look affronted by the insult.

It was an act, Bilbo knew. A good act, that Fili and Kili played so well. A game to make sure that people underestimated them and their talents, something to make them overlooked. It was a clever ruse, people were often more willing to share information with them when they thought that Fili and Kili couldn’t understand the depth of what was being said.

“Great! So where are we going?” Kili asked after Elrond declared them the Fellowship. There was a tone of genuine confusion in his voice, well it would have been if Bilbo didn’t see the mirth in Kili’s dark eyes. Bilbo choked on his laughter while Lobelia sent the youngest Durin a look so scathing that Bilbo was unsure how Kili didn’t drop dead on the spot.

“I’m going to kill him.” Lobelia muttered under her breath as Primula stared at Kili with her mouth open in shock. They’d learn, eventually, that Fili and Kili were smarter than they looked and generally acted.

Though he was still wondering how they’d lost the four ponies.

Soon the Council was adjourned. The Fellowship would leave in a week, giving all the parties involved time to gather supplies and plot out the course of their journey.

“Bilbo, I wish to speak to you.” Thorin’s voice was hoarse as the dwarven king approached the hobbit.

Emotions sweet and painful flared up in his chest as Bilbo looked at the King Under the Mountain. Bofur stood next to Thorin, his dark eyes pleading with the hobbit to speak with them. Turning to Lobelia, Primula, and Ori he gestured for them to move on while he stayed behind. Out of all of them Ori was the most reluctant to leave. He remembered the Arkenstone, he could remember seeing Thorin dangle Bilbo over the edge of a balcony as he screamed horrible things at him in madness. Yet Bilbo needed to talk to them. Needed to speak with Thorin and Bofur and while the scribe would have preferred to stay he knew that he would have to go.

And besides Nori was still hidden in the shadows, he’d intervene if things got out of hand.

“Don’t go.” Those were the first words out of Thorin’s mouth. “Please, Bilbo, don’t go. This quest is dangerous, you could die.”

“I’m already dying Thorin.” Bilbo’s voice was soft. He hated how Thorin flinched at the words.

“Aye, we know that laddie. The lads told us last night about why ye came here. This is where ye should stay, where ye can be looked after an-“

“Bofur.” Bilbo began, feeling his heart break. “I’m dying of something that has no cure that can be given to me. There is no way the elves can save me. I can do this, I can live long enough to do this. Let me protect you one last time. Let me help you keep your home and your people safe. Let my death bring something good about into the world instead of just sadness.”

Bofur reached out to him then, dragging Bilbo close and hugging him fiercely. The Consort clung to him for a long time before pulling away and pushing Bilbo into Thorin’s arms. The hobbit was hugged just as desperately by the King as he had been by the Consort. There was silence as they hugged, Thorin’s fingers clutching Bilbo’s waistcoat tightly.

Eventually they let him go.

“I should have never allowed you to sign that contract.”

“If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t have your home or your life.” Bilbo’s voice was gentle. “I don’t blame you for this Thorin, and neither should you.” The hobbit’s hand was gentle as he rested it on Thorin’s shoulder, his heart hurting so much he wanted to cry.

“We’re going to spend time with you, before you leave.” Bofur’s tone brooked no argument from Bilbo on that matter.

“I…alright.” Bilbo sighed.

“Thank you. We….we need to go talk to Fili and Kili.”

“Yes, I know.” Nodding Bilbo watched as the two dwarves reluctantly left the council chambers.

Trembling he slid down to the floor tears finally falling from his eyes as he clutched his chest. He didn’t hear Nori’s silent footsteps follow the two dwarves, but he did hear Ori’s when the young dwarf came back into the room. Coming behind the hobbit Ori wrapped his arms around him, hugging him close. The hobbit didn’t sob or wail, he didn’t murmur apologies, he simply curled into Ori’s chest clutching at his cardigan.

“You’re not alone. You won’t be. Not now, not ever again.” Ori whispered. “We won’t let you do this alone. We’ll destroy it, you’ll see. We’ll destroy it and the world will be a better place and you can go in peace. I promise. We won’t let you die with regrets.”

There they stayed, gathering themselves for their next adventure and wishing, not for the first time, that life was different from what they had in this moment.


	8. An Interlude With Yavanna

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How hobbits came to be and why Aule is in so much more trouble than he realized.

Yavanna loved her husband. She loved his short temper and his stubborn attitude. She loved his passion for his crafts. She loved the single mindedness he had towards his goals. She loved his protective nature. She loved Aule with all her heart.

Yet it didn’t mean she liked him right now.

Stalking into her domain after visiting her child she resisted the urge to throw something at him. It would not do to physically harm her husband, but her fury and her grief mixed together in a painful way. She wanted to scream, she wanted to cry, she wanted to throw a tantrum that would send Manwe running to see what was the matter.

Dramatic theatrics would get her nowhere. Creating a scene that would bring all the attention between her and Aule, how there was something quite wrong with their marriage as of late would not help her or him. All it would do is cause a fight amongst the Valar.

She had tried. She had tried so very hard to mend the rift between them after Aule had made the dwarves. She’d fashioned plants that could grow underground and be edible, she’d tried to make sure that her husband’s children never knew hunger or died from it. Yet he ignored her gifts to his children (his, not theirs. Never theirs. Only his), and then as their maker gave them the signal the dwarves did too. It wasn’t as if they didn’t use the gifts, and perhaps that was the worst part of it. They loved the food she had fashioned for them to use in their underground kingdoms, they loved the glimmering fungi she had made to help give them light in the dangerous depths of the earth and stone that made up their home when it’d be far too dangerous to use fire. Yet they never thanked her for them. They never offered up gratefulness or gratitude to her for what she had provided them. It wasn’t as if she wanted them to worship her, she just wanted some recognition that they cared a little for her too.

Then they began disrespecting her forests. They cut down trees without caring about preserving balance in the scales of life. They took life unnecessarily, others, their own. She had to do something because her husband certainly wasn’t stopping them, all too amused by the ‘rambunctious’ nature of his children. So she asked Eru to help her, to let her have children of her own to protect the forest and the meadows, to care and nuture what others took for granted.

Together they made the Ents. She loved her firstborn so dearly, her precious tree herders and field makers. They created balance, kept order and prevented the other races from destroying the land in which they lived. They were the guards in which no one thanked for their duty, planting trees to make up for the ones cut down, refusing to let others over harvest crops. They weren’t fun or lively, in fact the other races hadn’t much liked her dutiful firstborn. But they were hers and oh how she loved them.

Then Sauron came. With his war and his fire, with his disregard for all life. Yavanna could only watch in horror when the gardens of the entwives were burned. She could still hear their screams as they tried to protect the entlings they had, tried to protect the life that was theirs. The only small mercy had been that the ents had not witnessed the burning and the tainting of their wives lands. That they were not haunted by the screams of the family they could not save.

She had wept then. Her poor children left alone in the world, guarding the forests dutifully and fated to dwindle into nothingness. There would be no more entlings to grow big and strong like the trees they guarded. There would be no more entlings to learn how to grow the perfect fields or gardens. The destruction of the entwives was far graver than what the other Valar thought.

Aule had tried to comfort her then. Though he had not understood her pain, he did not grasp why she wept so brokenly. Her children had been vital to Arda’s existence. Without them the balance that had been held would be broken, that their loss not only affected her children but all the children of Eru and that the Valar had created. Losing her ents meant that the others would suffer too.

Eru had come to her afterwards, when Aule had left her side to go look after his brood. He had been gentle as he spoke with her. It was to her upmost surprise when he took her hand and gave her a song of Life to fashion into a new race. She recognized the melody of it, reminiscent of the maiar and the elves. Yet it was hers to change and adapt, to make it a song of her own. Eru had given her the most basic template of the soul, had blessed her second born without her having even asked for them. It was with this she knew her new children would be destined for great things.

That knowledge is perhaps why she chose them to be small. It was easier to appreciate one’s place in life when almost everything else seemed bigger than you. She made them mortal but malleable in their lifespan. She gave them curiosity and wonder, she gave them laughter and joy. Her children would not be great because of the battles they fought and the wars they won, they would be great because of what they brought in to the world, the gifts they gave as opposed to the gifts they received. Their strength would be in their hearts, their desires simple.

She fashioned them more and more in the image of her own heart, and when she was almost done she gave them one final gift. As she sang them into being she wove the refrain of the ents into their existence.

Aule had not been impressed with her creation. He tolerated her secondborn begrudgingly. Yet he found them too ‘soft’ and too ‘gentle’. He had rolled his eyes at how they spent their time gardening and playing as opposed to building grand civilizations like his children or Men or Elves. He had dismissed them.

And as always the dwarves had taken their cue from their creator and dismissed her children as well. She watched with ever growing irritation as the dwarves kept ignoring her and her children. Treating them without courtesy or care. Her irritation turned to anger the first time her second born fell into Uthenera because a dwarf rejected them. Then it happened again, and again. It kept happening, she realized, because she had given her second born her heart and soul. She had made them so much like her that whenever her children were near dwarves (so blastedly like her husband) Love sprang up like a troublesome weed that one couldn’t get rid of.

The dwarves never cared though. They treated her secondborn with disdain, even if they became friends her children would never be enough for them. Her children weren’t good enough in the eyes of the dwarves simply because they were not dwarves themselves. So she bundled them up and moved them to a land where no mountains existed, no precious metal, no gems, nothing in which to entice the dwarves to ever go near.

Now…Now this happened.

And her quiet irritation had morphed into righteous fury. Bilbo Baggins was the hundredth child of hers to begin Uthenera at the hands of a dwarf (or dwarves in his case). He was the hundredth and he would be the last.

“Yavanna, my love, ho-“

Spinning on her heel Yavanna levelled a glare on her husband that would have felled Morgoth. Aule froze, his eyes wide in surprise and fear as he watched his wife.

“ _You_.” She hissed. “This is _your_ fault.”

“What?”

“This! All of this!” Her hands swept out as she began to speak.

“I do-“

“SILENCE!”

Aule stared in shock as his wife shouted, trying not to flinch.

“I’ve had enough of your stupid selfish children to last me ten thousand lifetimes! They disrespect me, they mock me and my children, they destroy my forests and my fields without a second thought. They treat me with disrespect because _you_ treat me with disrespect. They follow your lead and because they do so I’ve found out just how little I actually matter to you. I’ve given them gifts that they take for granted! My children have tried to give them gifts but they are ignored and Rejected because they aren’t dwarves and therefore Not. Good. Enough. You and they have mocked them for their ‘soft useless ways’, the ‘soft useless ways’ that I do and enjoy myself. I’m DONE Aule. After this if a dwarf so much as breathes in the direction of a hobbit I will make their lives a waking nightmare. I am not going to lose any more to Uthenera because you and your children view them as second class beings. I am DONE picking up the messes you and your children create. I am DONE being belittled and snubbed. I thought you loved me, I thought you cared. But I don’t know anymore. I don’t know if you love me, I don’t know if you care. You broke my trust when you made the dwarves in secret. You keep telling me with your actions that I’m not worth much at all in your eyes. I’m done Aule.”

Yavanna’s voice was soft now as tears streamed down her face. When Aule tried to reach for her she stepped back. Shaking her head she pointed him in the direction of his domain.

“Go and don’t come back until you’re truly sorry and ready to work on this with me. I love you but I can’t keep doing this on my own, trying to fix it on my own. I can’t.”

He nodded at her then, heartbroken and hurt in his own way but she couldn’t deal with it. She had to think of herself for once, she had to think of her children. She had to think of the Ring and her poor Fading child who would carry it across the world because he was the only one who could. When Aule left she fell to her knees, weeping for her children, weeping for the destiny that Eru had given them. When she ran out of tears she watched the stars and prayed for her children.


	9. Stories Are Written in Ink and Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fili and Kili learn about hobbits.

“Sit still.”

Bilbo Baggins could only sigh as Lobelia snapped at him. His shirt had been wrested off him and discarded to the side, leaving Bilbo to sit on a stump naked from the waist up as Lobelia inspected his vallaslin. He knew he should have just ignored Lobelia’s questions earlier about whether he had added anything to his vallaslin after his journey. Curse his honesty and curse her sadistic desire.

Her fingers traced over the images in green on his skin, prodding the oak tree over his heart, the goose that lay on the top of his shoulder whose beak was barely hidden when he wore shirts, and the knotted mandala that lay on his upper arm. She hummed and thought for a moment, tapping the bare skin.

He knew what she was thinking. Most hobbits didn’t get more than just the tree over their heart, especially the respectable ones. Yet here he was a _respectable_ Baggins who had far more marks than his father ever had, but far fewer than he rightfully should.

Hobbits prided themselves most of knowing when to keep their noses out of things. Oh certainly they loved gossip and stories, they loved butting into each other’s lives almost constantly, but they knew boundaries. They knew where their home was, they knew their places in life. Certainly hobbits had a natural curiosity for the world around them, poking and prodding into the hows and whys of everything. But adventures like the one he had been on, adventures like the one he was about to embark on were not a hobbit’s place.

Yet here he was, listening to Lobelia mutter and grumble over just how she was supposed to _fit_ everything. She was determined to make him keep his heritage, as he should, because he was a Baggins of Bag End and Baggins did not simply ignore the deeds they’d done in life. 

“Lobelia who would have been able to do this to me then? I certainly couldn’t put the vallaslin on my back.”

“Hmph, you could have sent for me sooner. We could have done it in nice leisurely installments. Now I’m going to be rushed and if it turns out poorly you have no one but yourself to blame, Bilbo Baggins.”

Ori sat beneath a tree, sketching in his journal. Bilbo couldn’t stop the fond smile from his lips as he watched the young dwarf concentrate on his craft. Really he’d been about to open his mouth to call Ori over and perhaps get his input on how the images for his journey with them should look before two mischievous dwarfs burst through foliage of the tree Ori had peacefully been sitting under and landed together in a lump of tangled limbs.

“Bilbo needs more tattoos?”

“Mr. Boggins why didn’t you say so? We could have taken you to the artist Mister Dwalin uses!”

Lobelia’s eye twitched as Kili once again mispronounced ‘Baggins’. It was a game for him and a term of endearment combined into one. The youngest prince did not come too close to Bilbo or Lobelia though, instead watching them with his brother from their new spot by Ori. A matching set of cheeky grins told Bilbo that this was going to be a long afternoon.

“He couldn’t have. These are not tattoos.” Lobelia wrinkled her nose at the thought. “Not the way you _dwarves_ see them anyway.”

“They look like tattoos to me. I gotta say we were all surprised when we first saw them. Who would have thought a hobbit would have tattoos? You don’t seem like the sort of folk who’d want them. Especially a respectable gentlehobbit like Mr. Boggins.”

Bilbo hid his smile as he ducked his head down while Lobelia made an affronted and entirely disgruntled noise. He could feel her puffing up behind him, bristling like an angry cat. It would have been kind to tell her that they were intentionally trying to get a rise out of her. That they were still mad about how she’d greeted them with her umbrella. He probably should have stepped in.

But he wasn’t that good of a person.

“Certainly shows what dwarves know about us.” Lobelia began, her voice prim, proper, and full of censure. “As you are going to be in the company of three _respectable_ gentlehobbits then I feel it is my duty to educate you about us. These are things even Breelanders know. Though considering your origins I can’t say that I’m surprised your education is lacking.”

Fili and Kili made noises of protest, but Bilbo could see the curiosity glittering in their eyes. Bilbo hadn’t explained much about his vallaslin to the dwarves, no matter how much they needled and prodded. Mainly because when they’d first spotted it he still hadn’t quite felt like he had been a part of the Company. No one except Bofur and Gandalf had tried to be friendly with him, no one had gone out of their way to try and learn more about him. So when the troublesome twosome had stumbled upon him while he’d been trying to bathe by himself and spotted his vallaslin he hadn’t been inclined to explain it. How could he explain a more intimate part of his culture when they hadn’t even tried to learn about it before then? Hobbits were beings too, as complex culturally as the dwarves, men, and elves (but a lot less of that whole war and conquering business that the other races though, thank you very much). So he’d kept stubbornly silent until they’d stopped asking altogether.

“These are called vallaslin and no I won’t translate it into Westron for you.” Lobelia level a glare at Fili and Kili before going on. “When a hobbit reaches maturity, their 33rd birthday usually, they are given their first. It is always a tree and it is always placed over our heart. As you have noticed it isn’t a simple tree, we pick a tree whose spirit we wish to embody, Bilbo’s in an Oak. The knots represent the complexity of life. Even the color the particular hobbit picked has meaning to them, to the community, and to the Green Lady. It’s common for hobbits to only have a tree or some flowers, our vallaslin are signs of the deeds we’ve done that deserve recognition and note because they have affected the world around us and the lives of others. Good or ill we never let ourselves forget who we are, where we come from, and what we have done.”

Ori was staring at them with wide eyes, his sketch forgotten as he hurriedly wrote down what Lobelia said. Fili and Kili were in awe, they had known that the symbols had meant something, Bilbo didn’t seem to be the type to them to do anything without meaning. Yet it seemed so much more now. It wasn’t just Bilbo, it was hobbits in general. They recorded their greatest victories and failures on their skin, they told their stories on their skin. They could have learned so much about Bilbo, so quickly, if they had understood the symbols, the color. It was different than what the dwarves had, it had similar enough meaning to some, but not as a whole. Not across their entire race.

“And it isn’t just ink in which we make these marks. The vallaslin is made of vallaslin, it’s a mixture made unique to each hobbit and only the hobbit who is about to get their vallaslin makes it. It’s sacred, dirt-bloods. To get vallaslin added is a ritual in itself, where we endure the pain of our actions and do not make a single sound or else the one giving the vallaslin will cease, until the receive can face the consequences of their actions with pride.”

“If it’s so secret and sacred why’re you out here?”

The look Lobelia gave Fili would have managed to visible shame Thranduil.

“Because, stone for brains, we are children of Yavanna. How can Bilbo or I figure out how to record his journey of epic stupidity if we’re locked away from her influence inside stone walls? I mean this castle kingdom thing is all very nice but it isn’t conducive to being close to the Green Lady. Here I thought the elves understood the importance of nature but they’re no better than the dirt-bloods.”

As she had talked Bilbo could feel the tip of a quill against his skin. Slowly and steadily, during her explanation, she had drawn across his back. He didn’t know what she had planned, he wouldn’t know until they went back inside and he looked at the picture to see if he felt what she’d drawn was what his heart and mind could accept to be on his skin. It was going to be blastedly uncomfortable on the journey though, he could already guess. He’d be lucky if he would be able to sleep on his back at all.

Fili and Kili crept closer during the explanation. Leaving Ori beneath the tree as they came over to examine Bilbo vallaslin up close once more. He heaved another sigh as he felt their fingers tracing the intricate never ending knot of the tree, and the knot on his shoulder that marked him as being a Baggins. But when they touched the goose they stopped.

“Fee are you-“

“Yes…”

Their sudden intent on the top of his shoulder made his brows furrow. He would have turned his head to look if Kili hadn’t grasped his head, pushing it towards his opposite shoulder and giving the two princes a better vantage.

“What are you two do-“

“Bilbo your val-tattoo-thingy is different.”

“ _What_?” Bilbo could hear Lobelia as she pushed the two dwarves away from him and she began to inspect the vallaslin.

A muttered curse fell from her lips and Bilbo didn’t have to turn his head to know her expression was pinched. He could feel her fury and her sadness. She took a deep breath before she turned to the two boys.

“If you wish to understand why vallaslin is different from tattoos you’ve just witnessed it. The Uthenera affects a hobbit wholly, and as the vallaslin is a part of us it too is affected. It is turning black, it will all turn black as Bilbo falls farther into Uthenera. When it is all black he will not have long left.”

As the words came out of the hobbit’s lips Thranduil closed his eyes in grief, hidden by the curtain as he stood in the window overlooking the garden. With a heavy heart he turned away, paying the price for his curiosity over the hobbits habits. It would not be long until it began in earnest if the blood writing was already starting to wither. Thranduil could only hope, could only pray, that the fading light of the hobbit would last until the ring was destroyed. There could and would be no other who could bare it to its demise, and if Bilbo failed there would be no second chance.

If he faded before his task was complete all the world would die with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](http://s155.photobucket.com/user/elluvias/media/BilbosTattoos_zps03dfeef2.jpg.html)   
> 
> 
> Bilbo's three main vallaslin.
> 
> For a quick rundown so you guys understand the meaning behind them because I don't know if I'll get into it in the story. Believe me when I say that I'm surprised as to what happens but yes, okay.
> 
> Oak: It represents nobility, stability, and strength. It's what Bilbo's always personally strived for, I feel. Not in the ways that dwarves would, but in the ways that hobbits would. He has a strong inner character, even when he's entirely flustered and out of his element. He never loses sight of who he is, what his morals are, and what the ultimate goal is.
> 
> The Goose: It stands for kindness, loyalty, brave-heartedness. Compassionate keepers of their communities the symbol of the goose is particularly fitting for someone who is willing to do anything to protect friends and loved ones. They are good at protecting what is most valuable to them. They are highly intuitive. They remember where they come from no matter where they go in life. They are also pretty good communicators.
> 
> The knot: It's the Baggin's symbol for the Baggins family. All those who become the head of the Baggins household gets this. All families have their own special knot and sub families within a larger clan would have their own variations of the knot.
> 
> The flowering vine: (not pictured because I am lazy) Introspection, relaxation, and depth. Bilbo is most definitely someone who exists primarily in his head and heart, it ties everything together, all the things he's done and experienced in the past are reexamined, studied, and learned from a second time. Bilbo prefers peace and calm to high energy and motion, but above all he tries to find ways to relax and feel safe (as well as bring the same sense of safety and relaxation to others).
> 
> Why green: Vallaslin can be a variety of colors but Bilbo picked green. It's a color of harmony and life, it's a color for peace and life. Strong morals, self reliance, reliability, tactful, and practical. It's also a compassionate color. But there's more, it can also mean hypochondria, being an excessive do-gooder (Bilbo can be polite and compassionate to a fault), over cautious, and occasionally inconsiderate. All traits he recognized within himself.
> 
> And now I have given you more information than you ever wanted to know about this, I suspect.
> 
> P.S. Sorry the chapter was a bit wonky tonight. It will be better tomorrow I promise!


	10. The Heart Of The Lonely Mountain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kili tries to solve the mystery and muses on the past

Kili was not an idiot. He liked to play as one, he and Fili both, but he did have a little bit of sense in his head and a great many thoughts he did not voice. How could he voice them when he was supposedly a cheery fool content to cause mischief and mayhem wherever he could?

Well he _did_ like causing mischief and mayhem, but only because it exercised his poor stagnating brain. Did everyone else think that he and Fili did everything by chance? It took careful planning to make sure that their antics never allowed anyone to get too terribly hurt, it took vast insight into the workings of others so they could predict the outcomes of their games. Their obvious plotting was just another ruse, another mirror that reflected just a little of the truth but didn’t reveal it in its entirety.

He missed his mother at times like these.

His mother had been the one to whisper in their ears to never let anyone, not even their Uncle, understand just how clever they were. That the best way to ensure their survival was to pretend to be fools, playful immature fools.

It had saved his life more times than he could count, this masquerade. It had saved Fili’s life even more times than his. It had even saved Thorin’s life an occasion or two.

Even though, in the end, it hadn’t saved Dis’ life. Their foolishness could not stop the assassin’s blade when it pierced her heart. Their foolishness hadn’t saved her then. It was her own foolishness that had gotten her killed, taking a knife meant for her brother. It was duty that had gotten her killed. It was duty that had gotten them almost killed most of the times of their lives, duty to their king, duty to their family, duty to their heritage.

Leaning against Fili, Kili carefully whittled a figurine. They had escaped from the gardens, their hearts heavy as they tried to unravel the mystery of Bilbo Baggins. The brothers didn’t need to speak as they thought, their minds forever in sync, their hearts shared. It’s what made them so deadly, this almost unnatural connection. Except it wasn’t unnatural, not to them. They could not remember anything else, Kili had never existed without it in place.

They didn’t need to speak aloud as they took out the pieces of the puzzle they already had and began trying to make sense of them.

They had to. It wasn’t just a game right now (though few things were really _just_ a game to them). It was Bilbo’s life that hung in the balance. Fili and Kili didn’t look up as they felt their hearts twist at the thought of losing Bilbo. They didn’t want to live in an Erebor where Bilbo couldn’t live in also. They’d tried, for the last six months they’d tried and it didn’t work. It couldn’t work, not for them. They were being driven mad by the sheer confounded stupidity of their own people.

There were no relaxing talks over tea in an Erebor without Bilbo. Hobbits had the right of it there, tea did solve everything or more accurately helps the person in question mull over the problem in a calm manner until a viable solution could be thought out. Tea was even more potent when served by a hobbit who could parse through the hidden meanings of their babble, to get to the root of the problem, and give them sound advice without jeopardizing their game.

There were no extra hands to help them pull off mischief. Hobbits were quick and quiet, like living shadows, and Bilbo was the best. He seemed to know exactly when they should play a prank and on whom, and no one ever got hurt. There would also be no hands to help them clean up their messes either.

There would be no understanding in an Erebor without Bilbo. Not even Nori had seen so completely underneath the twin laughing masks of Fili and Kili as Bilbo had. He had seen them. He had seen them and loved them. He had understood them. He had seen them, loved them, understood them, and protected them like no one had since their mother died.

In an Erebor without Bilbo they would be alone.

Thorin was their Uncle, of course. Fili and Kili loved him dearly. But their uncle was also King Under The Mountain, and he had to be King Under The Mountain before he could be their uncle. Thorin loved them, but it was in a distant way. He had tried to be there, had tried to provide for them, but their people had come first. Their people had always come first, before family. They loved him, they loved their uncle fiercely but they couldn’t trust him. They couldn’t trust him to be there when they needed it.

Bofur was family now too. He was kind hearted and friendly. He soothed the rough edges Thorin would always have. He gave their uncle laughter. But he was slowly being consumed by the position of Consort. He didn’t have time, and he also had so many other relatives to look after as well. Fili and Kili didn’t resent him for it. How could they? Bofur loved as much as he was able to, spend time with them as he could, but he didn’t try to parse through the defensive layers Fili and Kili wrapped themselves in. They would trust him with their lives, they’d done so countless times before, but they couldn’t trust him with their hearts.

Bilbo Baggins had been the parent they’d been missing for so long. A mother to them. The hobbit had set consistent boundaries for them, had never hesitated or flinched when Fili and Kili had whisked him away from his duties to spend time with them. He showered them with the unconditional affection and love they had so craved. He also didn’t need physical force to keep them in line. He was perhaps a shining example of dwarven women despite being a hobbit, an echo in their minds of their own lost mother. Bilbo Baggins was their family, their only close family left.

And he was dying.

Bilbo Baggins was dying and the world was telling them they couldn’t save him. The elves were resigned, the other hobbits were resigned, Bilbo had accepted it, and the dwarves were left floundering because they couldn’t lose their burglar. They couldn’t.

Except they were.

And it shamed them to their core they couldn’t save him. That the most important person to them, their hobbit mother, was dying from a sickness they couldn’t cure. That he decided that instead of resting and staying in a place that could ease his passing, he was going to march across Middle Earth and drop a relic of unspeakable evil back into the fires from which it was formed. It hurt even more knowing he had left Erebor in the first place to keep his friends and family from witnessing the Uthenera.

It felt wrong, so terribly wrong that they couldn’t save Bilbo. He was of Yavanna’s blood, the hobbits were made in her image. Why had they not protected the hobbits before? Why had they ignored them? They were strong and clever, they were stubborn and hearty. Shouldn’t they be able to protect Mahal’s wife’s children? Shouldn’t Mahal show them a way to protect his wife’s children?

Yet Mahal was silent on the matter. Mahal had never told them to look after hobbits. Did Mahal not know of them? The hobbits certainly knew they were Yavanna’s, and looking at the Shire it should have been obvious to the dwarves from the start. Why didn’t they have trade agreements? Why didn’t they have alliances?

Kili could see how nessecary hobbits were for dwarves now that he’d spent time with one. At first he thought Bilbo was exceptional. That he was an outlier amongst his people, but now that he’d had the dubious pleasure of meeting Lobelia and Primula Kili was beginning to see that hobbits were as a whole exceptional beings.

There hadn’t even been hesitation during the Council when Lobelia and Primula had spoken up. The two hobbit lasses had the same look as Bilbo in their eyes. One that said: _Well this is going to be a right unpleasant task but it must be done and it must be done by us_. They had all volunteered to go on what was likely to be a one way trip to an evil volcano, and if Fili and Kili hadn’t been feeling panic and fear because Bilbo was going to take the Ring to Mordor they would have fallen into a fit of laughter at the gobsmacked looks on all the others faces.

But they hadn’t laughed. They had watched with growing trepidation and fear as no one spoke up against letting a terminally ill hobbit take the greatest evil of their age to a volcano in a land that was the antithesis of everything hobbits embodied. Then they had made their decision. They would go, to be with Bilbo, to let him have more family stand by him in this time of pain and darkness. If this quest failed there wouldn’t be an Erebor at all, with or without a hobbit in residence. If this quest failed everything was doomed.

Besides, someone had to make sure that the others didn’t take themselves too seriously.

Fili and Kili just happened to fit the bill.

And perhaps while they journeyed they’d find a cure for Bilbo’s ailment. Kili certainly intended to try and Fili was adamant that they not give up, not like everyone else. Even Ori, who Kili had almost been certain loved Bilbo more than the princes did, had seemed to accept the Uthenera as inevitable. They couldn’t and wouldn’t give up until Bilbo was cured or was dead.

They’d also get to learn more about hobbits who, Kili was learning, were more secretive than dwarves on their most secretive days. Perhaps their newfound knowledge was because Bilbo finally had other hobbits to be hobbit-y around. It didn’t matter to Kili the hows or whys of it, he wanted to learn more. He wanted to understand hobbits, he wanted to figure out a way to bind their people together. If Kili was Yavanna he wouldn’t be happy with the dwarves for their treatment of her or what she had created. Kili wouldn’t have even put much thought into having offended Yavanna if he hadn’t grown so fond of Bilbo, hadn’t been shown by Bilbo that life was infinitely more precious than gold or gems. Yavanna had instilled that in her people, in her hobbits, and that was good. Very good, because hobbits (especially ones called Bilbo Baggins) seemed to clear the head of dwarves, seemed to bring about something better within them. Kili liked being a better dwarf, he wanted his people to become better as a whole, and he doubted that would happen at all if they were kept separate from Yavanna’s people.

Kili didn’t want to imagine a world, an Erebor, without Bilbo Baggins. He knew no matter how much he needed Bilbo, how much Fili and Ori and Dori and Nori and Bifur and Bombur and Dwalin and Balin and Oin and Gloin needed Bilbo in Erebor there were two dwarves that needed him far more. That two dwarves had been broken and floundering in the Kingdom as soon as their hobbit had gone away, and that slowly things had been getting worse in his continued absence. Kili didn’t want to imagine an Erebor without Bilbo Baggins, because it wouldn’t be a home anymore. It wouldn’t be the home they fought and nearly died for. All it would be would be a place to rest their head and try to maintain so their people could be provided for. It wouldn’t be home.

It would never be home again without Bilbo Baggins, the heart of the Lonely Mountain.


	11. As Defenseless As Rabbits....With Big Pointy Teeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More hobbit history to ease the pai- Oh wait, never mind. Have some more anger at dwarves.

“Bilbo my grandmother could dodge better than that, and she’s dead!”

Lobelia’s voice was full of mockery as she twirled her umbrella in her hand. Bilbo simply rolled his eyes at her insults. Really her grandmother could have dodged an oncoming pack of wargs with little trouble, and the hobbit was still dead and buried in the Old Forest. It’d be most disconcerting if she wasn’t where they’d left her. A sort of disconcerting Bilbo didn’t want to dwell on too long.

“Oh you know me, Lobelia, can’t let your feelings get hurt because you don’t think you can best me.”

“OooooOooo Lobeliaaaaa I think he just uttered some fighting words.” Primula grinned from her spot on the sidelines, her bright blues eyes full of young mischief. Her dark curls were pulled into their customary messy pigtails, her hair far too long for a boy’s but far too short for a girl’s. It was the sort of hairstyle that suited Prim well, Bilbo had told her about it when he’d described his mother in her younger adventuring days.

“For once I agree with you, brat.” Lobelia grinned as she swung her umbrella at him.

It was pure instinct (instinct that usually kept his head being severed from his shoulders during his previous journey that had been honed by the hobbit in front of him) that kept the blow from connecting. Bending backwards he shifted, flowing around the slashes and stabs with ease. Grinning at Lobelia cheekily he went to the ground, picking up a small clod of dirt and hurled it at her. The matron hobbit dodged his projectile with the same practiced ease that he had.

This dance was familiar and comforting.

Hobbits did not fight conventional warfare. Honestly they weren’t really made for it. They relied on stealth and precision, they relied on the fact that most wouldn’t expect a curly haired hobbit to hurl a rock with enough skill to kill a squirrel, let along take out an eye. They relied on the everyday items around them, picking weapons that usually weren’t weapons at all….until you put them in the hands of a hobbit.

Lobelia favored her umbrella. Not that anyone else knew she kept a sharpened blade inside it, that the cloth wasn’t cloth at all, but the leaves of a plant that were as flexible as cloth, waterproof, and as hard as leather. Just because the hobbits had made it look feminine and fancy didn’t mean that it wasn’t deadly.

Bilbo…well he had always been a bit more odd in his choice of weaponry. Not that anyone knew that he’d had fighting fans and throwing daggers. Bungo had always tried to caution his son against learning more offensive arts (hence why his father had pushed him to work on his fans) while Belladonna had always tried to caution him towards offensive arts.

When he’d left his home running after the dwarves with impractical clothes and a bag filled with books and Old Toby, he’d quite forgotten his weapons as well. While he’d certainly had a terrible allergic reaction to the ponies and he did truly want to go back and recover his handkerchief, he’d wanted his weapons more.

Except he couldn’t ask for them. He couldn’t let the dwarves know about those, he couldn’t let the dwarves get a hint that hobbits were a bit more armed than they first appeared. It was the element of surprise the hobbits had when it came to invaders that had helped keep them safe, well that and the fact that the Old Forest tended to consume invading forces like Bombur could eat a cake. Yavanna and the dead did what they could to protect the Shire, and if by some stroke of bad luck some band of idiots did try to raid the Shire…well they were met with the ingenuity of hobbit fighting.

It was a relic of times long past, before there was a Shire to be had by hobbits. When the hobbits tried to make their homes in the dead plains beyond Mirkwood. When the sad call of their dead elder siblings, the entwives, brought them there. Trying to heal the wound created in the earth, tried to bring life to a place where life had long since left. They had little then, and less after, when others had come and tried to take them as pets and slaves. Dark beings, orcs, men with tainted hearts, goblins, they had all been drawn to the fledgling race. They had been drawn to the fresh life, the sweet nurturing song of the hobbits as they had tried to fix what had been broken.

The first home of the hobbits was destroyed. Many had been taken, others killed. They had not wanted to leave though. It was their home. It was where they had been called to be. So they ran, they ran to where their hearts told them to run. To the mountains, to the dwarves, surely the children of the husband of their creator would help them. Would give them aid.

They were turned away at the gates. These soft creatures were no warriors, they had no stone sense, they were young and childish. They were given odds and ends, few things that could have been made into conventional weapons, mostly castoffs and trash.

The hobbits would not fight a war, despite the pain and rage in their hearts. Hobbits were not made for war, it was not their place. All war would bring them would be death and sorrow, any victory would come at too high a cost to the battered people. Yet neither could they surrender. To surrender would mean annihilation or worse, becoming a tainted twist shadow of what they had once been. They would not fight and they would not submit, so they only had one road ahead of them.

They ran. It was not an easy journey. It was lonely, painful, they wept tears as they ran. They were pursued along the way, for they were weak and small and had no traditional weapons amongst them.

That was when hobbits learned that even the smallest most unassuming things could hold great power, could still be deadly.

Soon after the hobbits found safety with the woodland elves and their elder siblings the Ents. There they stayed for a time, slowly venturing out, slowly exploring the lands and meeting others. A century and a half after the ransacking of their first home Yavanna came to them. She had made a new home for her youngest, one far from men, orcs, goblins, and dwarves (though the hobbits had slowly begun to trust them once more, their grudges never lasted as long as other races). They followed her to their new home, their home.

Elvhenan they called it, they place of their people, the place of their hearts.

The Shire is what others called it, and what the hobbits soon learned to call themselves.

Yet they never forgot their origins, even if they did not discuss it. They remembered it in their vallaslin, the blood writing, they remembered it in their language. They remembered it with their secrecy and seclusion. They remembered it with their unconventional fighting styles. They remembered in their hearts, and while the hobbits forgave they did not forget and they did not trust as easily as they seemed to.

Which it was all well and good, because it had been far too long since he’d practiced with anyone of great skill in proper hobbit fighting.

Which to say it wasn’t proper or honorable at all by dwarven standards, unless that dwarf was Nori. Nori would make a good hobbit fighter, so would Ori come to think of it. When they got on the road in a few days times Bilbo would have to see about teaching his best dwarven friend about the ways of hobbits. That also meant he’d probably be teaching Fili and Kili as well. Gimli wouldn’t touch the style with a ten foot pole. So that made three practice mates for Primula in proper hobbit fighting style, who weren’t Lobelia and Bilbo. Perhaps Aragorn would continue to teach the younger hobbit how to use a sword and Fili and Kili would continue their training with him? It would do to ask.

But later.

When he and Lobelia hadn’t once again found themselves in a draw with bruises and dirt covering their bodies. Primula was laughing hard enough to hold her sides as she watched the two almost legendary (in the _Shire_ at least) adversaries (who were actually best friends) smirk at each other having ‘killed’ each other.

“You know, Lobelia, your grandmother may have been able to dodge better than I ever will even in death but my grandmother still hits harder than you.”

“Shut up you dirty knife-ear.”

“I love you too, Lobelia, I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The amazing fanart inspired me to fanart as well (albeit awkwardly). The link below is to my tumblr for a sketchy wip lineart of the three hobbits.
> 
> http://elluvias.tumblr.com/image/46059186207
> 
> Thank you all for all your amazing comments! I read them all and flail happily over them.


	12. All The Stars Are Falling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brief insight into the mind of a dwarven king.

Thorin Oakenshield did not know what to do. The feeling of his world ending had never been a pleasant one. He’d felt it too many times before. He’d seen his world ending too many times before to take the feelings gracefully. Life was always changing, and more often than not it wasn’t for the better in his opinion.

Feeling Bofur’s hand on his Thorin looked up at his beloved miner, his Consort. The only other being in Middle Earth who understood what he was feeling in this moment as he watched Bilbo Baggins talk animatedly with Thranduil. There was a half smile on Bilbo’s face, and Thorin knew, even from here, that the hobbit’s eyes were twinkling. How Bilbo could speak so kindly to Thranduil almost escaped Thorin. The elf was a bastard, was a betrayer, a liar, and extremely poncy in Thorin’s humble opinion.

Yet the elf had taken Bilbo from Erebor when the Halfling had apparently begun to fall to a sickness that had no cure. The elf that had refused to aid Thorin’s people as they had lost their home, had been in various states of injury and distress, had imprisoned Thorin, left his Company to die by spiders, and had nearly started a war over gold the elf king did not need. This elf that did not hesitate to send looks of cool hatred towards him and his kin whenever possible. This elf who hated him and his people with more passion than most. It was _this_ elf who had decided to comfort Bilbo Baggins, to see after his health, to give him a home within his halls while he died a slow death.

Thorin had never seen Thranduil look at anyone with such kindness, well kindness for Thranduil, neutrality for everyone else. Thorin had seen the way the elf king’s eyes went to Bilbo’s form, a look of sadness gracing his features.

Even Elrond seemed to be upset over the illness.

Which made the dwarf king wonder how preventable could it have been? Could there have been something within the Mountain itself that had triggered this hereditary ailment of the halflings? Or had it been the Ring that had triggered Bilbo’s sickness? Bilbo had tried to indicate that it had been no one’s fault, that it was just something that happened to halflings.

Yet the lingering looks of barely contained hostility from the elves told Thorin otherwise.

What was Thorin missing? What wasn’t he seeing?

The elves saw something that the dwarves could not. It was obvious that the illness was race related and that its presence was noticeable. Thranduil had recognized it at Thorin’s wedding feast without Bilbo telling him. Beorn had recognized Bilbo was ill by looking at him. Yet as Thorin stared at the hobbit he couldn’t find anything new, couldn’t find anything that told him Bilbo was terminally ill. There were slight bags under his eyes (but those were normal when Bilbo was having difficulty sleeping), actually all Thorin could see when he looked at Bilbo was the hobbit’s exhaustion. He looked like he needed a good nap, a little bit more food, and some of that tea that Bilbo always favored when he needed to relax.

But something in him told the dwarven king that sleep would not fix the source of the tiredness. That more food, tea, and comfort wouldn’t mend the weariness. Perhaps this was what the others saw and could tell the subtle difference between lack of sleep and Uthenera.

Such a strange word, Uthenera. Such a strange thing for him to realize hobbits had a language all their own.

It wasn’t that Thorin didn’t think they could have their own language. It was that he would have suspected that it was more common, that perhaps someone else had heard of it. But men did not know this Hobbitish and neither did the dwarves. The elves seemed to be mixed, Elrond and Thranduil both seemed to understand what the hobbits were saying when they slipped into their native tongue but there were others who seemed entirely puzzled as to the hobbits spoke of. The hobbits didn’t slip into their native tongue all too often either, Thorin could say without fear of being wrong that more Khuzdul had been spoken in Thranduil’s halls than Hobbitish in the last five days.

It was a beautiful language though, Thorin admitted. It was ponderous at times, a gentle roll and cadence to the words. It was not fast, even when spoken quickly and furtively. There had been a time when he heard it that it didn’t seem deliberate and measured, where it had come out like a bear charging at full speed and equally dangerous. Yes, that is what hobbitish was, a language that was quite like a bear. Often slow lumbering along with its own particular grace until it needed to go fast, when it needed to threaten and attack.

He wished Bilbo had spoken it in Erebor. He wished that he could have learned it.

“It don’ seem right. Letting him go.”

Bofur’s voice cut through his thoughts, bringing Thorin back to himself.

“We can’t force him to stay.”

Thorin had tried to think of a way he could, but he couldn’t. Not when Bilbo had resigned his position as the Elven Ambassador and left his rooms in Erebor to be taken. Bilbo was no longer a citizen of the Kingdom. If the hobbit had been a dwarf Thorin could have ordered it. If the hobbit had been a dwarf this wouldn’t have happened.

Bofur didn’t make a noise but Thorin could feel the miner’s rough hand tighten in his. Thorin understood his pain, the mirror of his own. It was this shared grief that had brought them together in the first place, it was this understanding that had been the foundation of their love.

Bilbo Baggins was their One and they could never have him. They could never claim him. They could never be fulfilled the way their souls cried out for because Bilbo was not a dwarf and never would be.

They were going to have to let him walk out the door and onto another quest, one far darker and deadlier than going to face a dragon. They were going to let their One go to their death, trying to protect the people he loved, the places he loved. They were going to lose their One to death in one form or another and they couldn’t stop him, they couldn’t save him. They couldn’t even go with him.

For they were dwarves and they could not marry outside their race. They could not take lovers outside their race. To do so would be to give up their families, their friends, their home, their position. Everything that they were would no longer be theirs, they would be cast out and their beards shorn. They had too many responsibilities, too many who depended on them to be able to throw it all away.

And they died, just a little, every day they could not have him.

At least they had each other. At least they genuinely loved each other. At least they’d have comfort when Bilbo died.

At least Thorin wouldn’t be alone this time when his world finally ended, again.


	13. First March Of The Ents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thranduil muses on the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINISHED CHAPTER AND NOW I NEED TO APOLOGIZE BECAUSE I ACCIDENTALLY DELETED IT AND LOST THE COMMENTS AND DJHKJGH FORGIVE ME AMAZING COMMENTORS

Thranduil hated dwarves. It wasn’t an exaggeration. It wasn’t something he cared to even try to hide. He hated Aule’s children, hated them more than most elves could comprehend. The only other elves he had met that felt the cold burning hatred that Thranduil felt were Elrond’s twin sons. Elrohir and Elladan did not dwarves though, they hated orcs. Which was a perfectly respectable race to despise without even being given a reason, and Elrohir and Elladan had been given quite legitimate reasons to see every orc in existence to die ruthlessly painful deaths.

Thranduil did not have such an excuse to wage war on Aule’s children, if he could have found one he would have used it ruthlessly to his advantage. Except most of the excuses he could come up with, the ones that didn’t sound petty, often were gainsaid by Elrond. Not that Thranduil needed Elrond to help him rule the Woodland realm, but Elrond was a useful ally and if he said that the war would not be won then….Thranduil would not risk so many elven lives for vengeance.

Hate did not mean that he was without reason. Hate did not mean that he could not be persuaded to let the hatred simply exist within him as opposed to letting it ruin the lives of his people. Thranduil was a king above all else, his people were his kin, and he would guard them as a mother bear would guard her cubs.

Sometimes the others did not grasp the reason for his cold hatred. He had not always been such, Elrond could sometimes be far too into his cups when he began this line of reminiscing. Thranduil had been frosty, distrustful, and distant in his youth when it came to dwarves. It hadn’t been hatred then, it hadn’t been so dark and deep like poison. It had been just dislike, a gentle avoidance that was not too rude nor all encompassing. Elrond had once mused what it was that Thranduil had seen that had changed him thus.

Thranduil knew it was a rhetorhical question. Elrond had guessed at the root of his hatred centuries past. He was right, even as he did not understand it. Even if he had not witnessed it with his own eyes. Not like Thranduil had.

The first hobbits to come into the Greenwood, almost an Age ago, had been almost dead. They were starved, bedraggled, dirty, wounded, and terrified clutching at broken odds and ends that could not have originally been weapons but had become such in the hands of desparate poor people. Thranduil had been there as the hobbits who had come, the scouts, wept and scrabbled at the trees speaking in a tongue that had a ring of Entish to it, but it was much faster than that language. Thranduil had seen as the hobbits begged the trees for aid, their fingers bleeding as they cried for help, for safety. The elves had been surprised at their appearance, unaware of such small strange creatures, and unsure if they were friend or foe.

That was until the Ents arrived.

The trees herders of the Greenwood had long since wandered to Fangorn now. Yet then, _then_ they had been here to watch over the forest. Then they had been close, and they had heard through the trees of their siblings’ plight.

Thranduil had never witnessed a sight more terrible than an army of Ents. The Ents had come from the depths of the wood faster than Thranduil had thought they could move. The Ents had bellowed furious and filled with disbelieving grief at seeing their siblings (Thranduil had not known then that hobbits were the brothers and sisters of Ents) broken and terrified. The Ents had been gentle as they picked up the scouts, soothing the frightened and broken creatures in their hold as they took them as far as the first elven outpost (which they needn’t have done since the elves had been curious as to what the commotion was about and what these beings were).

It had been the Ents who had explained, in rumbling ponderous voices filled with barely concealed fury that these were hobbits. That they were the newest race to be brought to Arda by Yavanna but they were also Eru’s children. The last part had the elves moving, taking the injured and beginning to treat them. The Ents hadn’t finished then, because they had said that the hobbits had been massacred, that these weren’t the only ones, and that they were going to get their siblings back.

The Ents marched then, with ancient fury, a compliment of elves riding out behind them to lend aide to what they could consider their cousins (funny cousins with pointed ears like them, but much much smaller than any other race and such strangely large feet). Thranduil had ridden with the Ents, a warrior of great skill he knew he could be of use. Especially since the Ents had always helped the elves, had taught the elves, and even if they weren’t the most friendly or sociable of beings the Ents had been unfailing kind.

Few things haunted Thranduil like the sight of the hobbits as they tried to run to the Greenwood. The horror Smaug wraught did not compare to the sight of the trail of dead hobbits that led to the far too small group of hobbit survivors. The plains had been unforgiving then, allowing him to see how long they had been running by the bodies behind them. He saw the burns and cuts, he saw the broken limbs badly mended, he saw the haunted eyes of the youngest children of Yavanna and Eru and could glean the horrors they had witnessed. They had even been under attack as the Ents had marched towards the small group growing smaller.

The Ents had left no attacker living. The elves had little chance to show off their own battle proweress, partially because the Ents were quite handily dealing with the problem and partially because the hobbits needed healing and aide.

It hadn’t stopped there. As bad as it was, that had not been the worst of it. They had learned of others who had been captured to be taken as slaves or servants or worse. A small group of elves had escorted the group they’d found to the Greenwood, Thranduil and the others followed the Ents on their furious march to free their siblings.

It had taken a year to find all the hobbits. A year was all it took for the Ents and the elves to eradicate every single wandering tribe of Men that had taken part of the enslavement and genocide of the hobbits. A year in which Thranduil had witnessed the depravity of Men and the inner strength of the hobbits. It was a year, that single year, that had changed Thranduil irrevocably for eternity. No innocence was held in the elves who had stayed with the Ents, who had cared for battered, beaten, enslaved, and molested hobbits. A year in which Thranduil had to hold more hobbits than he could dare count as they sobbed and begged for mercy from beings who should never have been ‘Masters’.

The raging hatred that Thranduil had found in himself for those tribes of men had spent itself centuries past, when the last of those vile beings breathed their last. Yet it had never spent itself for the dwarves, it never would. It never could.

Thranduil had found, through gentle coaxing, through broken sobs, and through numbed toneless voices that it could have been prevented. That this horrible genocide could had ended close to the beginning. If only those who had been closest to the hobbits had stepped in, the children of Yavanna’s thrice damned husband. The dwarves could have marched, could have let the hobbits hide in their heavily fortified kingdoms, but the youngest and newest of the races had been deemed ‘too soft’ ‘useless wastes’ and ‘potential risks to the safety of the dwarves’. They had barred their gates to the refugees, thrown scrapes and trash at them in ‘kindness’ and turned the hobbits away back into the plains where there was no hiding nor safety to be had, the Greenwood the only other place to potentially be safe.

But the hobbits had been harassed at every turn, picked off like sport, not like the living breathing creatures that they were. Many had been taken to slavery, many more had been killed.

When Thranduil and the Ents finally came back, could finally count the number of hobbits that had survived the total had horrified them. Three hundred and six hobbits had survived and over half had been maimed in a fashion that not even elvish healers could fix.

Elrond had not been there for that. Elrond had not been the one tending to the hobbits as they recovered from the near extinction of their entire race. Elrond did not hear their screams when night terrors took a people who had once been the most innocent in Arda. Elrond had not seen the bodies of hobbits littering the plains as far as the eye could see.

Elrond had not been there to watch the bravery of a set of twins who had stayed with the elves and the Ents on their March. They had been special to him, those brave foolish hobbits who learned how to pick locks and stay in shadows, to infiltrate the tribes of Men to free their kindred or to slip a sleeping potion to the tribe’s water supply to make it easier for the elves and Ents to kill them. Such foolish dear hobbits.

Belle and Lucien, no clan name, no family that Thranduil had ever learned of. Golden haired and green eyed, they had been so strangely twined together in their personality and movements. Forever snapping and teasing each other, forever trying to draw a smile out of everyone. Belle had always had a gentler touch, a sweeter (and slier) nature, her eyes a softer grayer green set in a face that was on the pretty side of plain. Lucien had had sharper features, brighter clearer green eyes, and a quick temper.

They had been dear to him. The only thing that had helped him stay sane during the March. Their clever and easy banter, their solid but flexible strength that refused to be broken for so long.

Thranduil knew it wasn’t coincidence that those two twined twin souls had come back. Really he shouldn’t have been surprised that hobbits could come back like dwarves could. Yet when he had seen Bilbo Baggins standing with trembling defiance to the king he loved holding the Arkenstone for Thorin’s enemies to have in a painful gambit to save the foolish dwarf’s life Thranduil had recognized that plain but pretty face, the cleverness beyond the hobbit’s short years. It had taken a great deal to keep himself from sweeping Bilbo into his arms and dragging the hobbit into the relative safety of Mirkwood. How dare Aule’s children drag one of Yavanna’s across the world on such an ill thought and foolish venture. How DARE the dwarves even dare to ask Yavanna’s youngest for help?

How _**DARE**_ Mithrandir do this to a hobbit?

Yet Thranduil knew not to ignore the wisdom or wishes of Belle, now Bilbo Baggins. She had seen the world like few did, finding pieces to puzzles that no one had known had been missing. Her reincarnation could likely do the same.

Though he had wondered where Lucien’s soul was, for Lucien had never been far from Belle’s side before. It seemed strange, almost unnatural. Thranduil had to trust Eru’s judgment on that though.

Now he could see the plan, the bigger picture. He hated it though. He hated knowing he was sending hobbits to their death, that he was likely sending his youngest son on a journey that would change him or could kill him. He hated knowing that he could trust no other soul than the soul of a hobbit he had twice met to destroy the greatest evil in their land. Bilbo could not be swayed by the Ring, not entirely.

Because Bilbo had accepted his death with all the grace one of the Fading could have. It would be a relief to the hobbit to die. To stop hurting in ways that wouldn’t be able to heal.

It didn’t mean Thranduil liked it. When he had seen the flickering light of Bilbo’s soul in Erebor, during the wedding feast rage had consumed him for a moment. Rage at Bilbo for loving someone he could not have, rage at the two dwarves smiling at the Head Table, rage at the world for letting such a cruel thing happen, even rage at Eru for letting the hobbits be closer kin to elves than any other race in Arda. Thranduil had reigned in his anger towards Bilbo at least, no heart goes looking for a Love to be scorned. Especially those of the Fair folk (which Thranduil always considered the hobbits to be a part of) who knew what broken hearts could do.

Thranduil had done what any sensible member of a family would do when confronted with the problem he had seen. He’d been careful but firm as he had forced Bilbo out of the hall, not allowing a scene to be made, and not allowing the hobbit to be confronted by the Finality of his new fate. Bilbo had been so achingly similar to Belle on that balcony, calm but sad, self-deprecating, and grateful for any scrape of kindness given to him. It had made Thranduil want to wrap his arms around Bilbo and shelter him from the world, because damn Eru for bringing Belle’s precious soul back only to let it flicker away.

The elven king understood the plan now. Could see the machinations of Eru, could even understand the necessity of it all.

“It never gets any easier.”

Elrond stared at him with dark eyes.

“What?”

“Seeing the ones we love as pawns in a grand game of chess.” Elrond’s fingers wrapped around a glass of wine.

Glancing at the dark haired high elf Thranduil frowned. Yes, he knew Elrond’s family had often been the game pieces of Fate. He did not envy the Lord of Rivendell and how his bloodline had attracted Fate and Destiny to it like a child covered in honey attracted bees. Thranduil had hoped his own bloodline had avoided such grand schemes, he had hoped he had escaped the sticky strings of Fate. Now he and his youngest were caught in its web, but worst of all were the hobbits, who had no business being here at all being the center of it all.

“I feel like we keep failing our little cousins.” Sighing Thranduil relaxed in Elrond’s presence. “They’re here in the center of this mess that began before their people existed. We should have ended it long before now.”

“Are you underestimating their abilities to get this done?”

Thranduil snorted. “Between the two of us I know far better than you at what hobbits can endure and do. Our little cousins are capable of feats greater than any Man could ever dream to accomplish. I mean, we’re older, we _are_ supposedly stronger and wiser. We should have dealt with this evil before instead of willfully ignoring that it still existed and lingered. Now our procrastination in our duties is coming back to bite us in a most unpleasant place, Lord Elrond.”

“It has indeed.” Elrond mused as he smiled into his glass.

“I’m not telling the Ents about this though. You get to do that O’ great Lord Elrond, esteemed member of the White Council.”

“It’s a secret mission. It won’t be a secret if we keep telling everyone.”

“The Ents are going to find out somehow and if they ask me I’m going to point them at you for letting their little siblings go to Mordor.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I would without hesitation or remorse.”

It was Elrond’s turn to sigh then. Telling the Ents was going to be put off as long as elvenly possible, if Thranduil could hazard a guess at what the other elf was thinking. Not that Thranduil blamed him, he had shamelessly given the task to the other because he hadn’t wanted to be the one to send the message. The Ents were going to be angry and it would likely start another March, there would be no way around it. They were stubborn fierce guardians and only two things ever ranked above the forests in Ent priorities of protection. The first were the Entwives and Entlings, though they were all long dead or now old enough to no longer be Entlings. The second were hobbits, the younger siblings. Oh the hobbits were going to get a lecture about going and doing insane and dangerous things, but that was the least of the elves worries. The elves would be lucky to get fruit or nuts from any tree peacefully for the next five centuries until the Ents cooled off and told the trees to be nice again.

Thranduil almost couldn’t wait to see what the Ents would do to Mithrandir when they found out his hand in all of this. Where most beings on Middle Earth would at least try not to upset or anger a wizard Ents were another matter of being entirely. They didn’t care if they made a wizard angry. The Ents would do as they wished, and they’d probably wish to have very strong, angry, words with Mithrandir, perhaps even some general hostility unleashed from the trees would also happen.

And the dark twisted part of him wanted to see what would happen when the Ents found out one more sibling was being taken by Fading because of a dwarf. The last time the Ents had heard of a dwarven slight an entire forest was deemed dangerous and inhospitable territory for any dwarf for a century. Happy days then, seeing Aule’s children terrified of trees. If the subject wasn’t already painful for him to muse on for too long he’d almost volunteer to tell the Ents all the sordid details.

But he respected Bilbo’s privacy enough not to tattle and his heart couldn’t bear to tell Treebeard that sweet Belle had come back only to be taken away by dwarven hands. Treebeard had loved Belle and Lucian too, quite proud of his clever, brave, and terribly tiny siblings. Treebeard was going to love Belle’s reincarnation if he ever got a chance to meet Bilbo Baggins.

It would be nice if they did. 

Family was never meant to be separated for long, Belle had told him once long ago. Family always had this strange way of always coming back together, because that’s where it was supposed to be. 

Thranduil couldn’t tell if he was amused or exasperated as her words had once again proven to be true.


	14. Many Many Years Ago

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucien gives a warning to Belle's suitor.

**Many Years Ago**

“If you hurt her I’ll castrate you with a blunted rusty spoon.”

Lucien didn’t even have to look up at the elf for the Noldor to grasp the sincerity of his words. In fact he seemed more concerned with getting the dirt out from underneath his nails than staring at the dark haired elf who was sitting beside him, mooning pathetically over Lucien’s twin. It was the sort of thing all older siblings said to the potential husbands of their younger ones.

“If I hurt her I’ll beat myself up to avenge her honor.”

“Oh, no, you misunderstand me m’lord.” A look of pure boredom was thrown at the elf now. “That is the first thing I’d do to you. After that…well let’s just say you will arrive in the Halls of Mandos in multiple pieces. Mighty Balrog slayer or not, no one hurts Belle and lives very long afterwards.”

It was good to note that the elf, Ecthelion, nodded in his understanding that Lucien would murder him in an inventive and painful way. That level of basic understanding was something that Lucien was glad to know would remain present even after the idiot elf finally got around to wooing Belle properly. As for right now he was fairly certain he was the only one who realized Ecthelion was trying to woo Belle.

The elf might be good enough for her too. He was smart, a decent warrior who could protect Belle from harm if that story about him killing the Balrog was true (which seemed a bit untrue considering how Ecthelion and Glorfindel had died and yet here they both were looking decidedly not dead and not burned), didn’t expect Belle to be anything else other than Belle, liked music, and seemed a noble sort of soul.

Too bad for all his good qualities Ecthelion was the worst elf Lucien had ever met in regards to communication and expression of feelings. The poor sod’s flirting consisted of telling Belle her clothes were unfit for her personage and then giving her a new set of quite flattering clothes that were decidedly unpractical when it came to thieving or sneaking. Belle hadn’t quite known what to do with the gift or the declaration, but she’d thanked him anyway and shot a helpless look at Lucien to please translate what the crazy elf was doing. The courting would have been more obvious if Ecthelion hadn’t endeavored to explain his reasoning behind every gift he gave Belle.

The poor bastard was drowning in his courting attempts and Lucien was still far too amused by it to lend Ecthelion a hand.

Especially since the elf managed to make compliments sound like veiled insults without meaning to.

All in all Lucien had a bet going inside his head for when exactly Ecthelion managed to get it across to Belle that he was courting her.

His sister was smart, smarter than anyone else he’d ever met. She lacked common sense at the most inopportune moments, but she always had a knack for getting herself out of the trouble she often placed herself in. She could recall excerpts from books she’d read decades ago almost verbatim, she played riddle games with the Ents, and had a special knack for navigating political shitstorms (which is why Belle had been given the role of advisor to Thranduil). Yet for all her intellectual proweress, her unrespectable talents of being particularly good at walking hidden in broad daylight and lockpicking, and excellent pie making skill Belle just never noticed when someone was smitten with her. She could never quite believe it when Lucien had pointed it out to her in the past. Rolling her eyes, turning pink, and insisting that Lucien was insane.

Honestly Lucien was still reigning his urge to punch the hobbits who had snubbed Belle as children in. Lucien and Belle hadn’t grown up a part of the respectable hobbit community. No one knew who their father was and they never would now because their mother Marigold had died in the first raid of Arlathon. They’d been poor, they’d been different, and had been mocked for years because of it.

Looking at how the hobbits treated him and his twin now, Lucien was glad that they’d had to eat their words and recognize if it hadn’t been for their unrespectable heritage and talents than there would be even fewer hobbits living and recovering in Greenwood. No respectable hobbit had wanted to give them jobs before, forcing Lucien and Belle to turn to other less wholesome means to feed themselves. Those skills came in handy when freeing themselves and others from manacles or sneaking to a food pot and slipping poison inside.

Belle had accepted these abilities, yet it had hurt her too. No respectable hobbit would want a burglar and a thief for a wife, and Belle was unfortunately highly attracted to respectability. She couldn’t wrap her mind around a hobbit wanting her for a wife and lover, it’d break her poorly constructed reality that an elf was wanting her for a wife. Especially noble, handsome, and painfully respectable Ecthelion of the Fountain who Lucien knew for a fact Belle already fancied like most of the other warm blooded hobbits.

Thank the Valar that if and when Belle and Ecthelion got together it wouldn’t end up an epic tragedy like Beren and Luthien. Thranduil had carefully answered that question for Lucien about a month back when the hobbit had figured out that Ecthelion was smitten with his sister. The taboo between men and elves was because in the end their souls and hearts were quite different. Love was not as important or necessary for Men as it was for elves, it could hurt but it couldn’t kill. Not like it did with elves. Thranduil had pointed out that despite the height difference and the feet, hobbits were essentially elvish in their hearts and souls. Cousins is what Thranduil had claimed them to be, and Lucien found himself agreeing with that statement. With that said, Thranduil noted that no one would truly object to a pairing such as a hobbit and an elf, even with the knowledge that at the end the elf would not survive it.

Hearing Belle shriek with laughter, choking on her giggles as she found herself in a pile of fauntlings and elflings Lucien felt his demeanor shift from threatening and contemplative to amused. The warmth of her happiness echoed across their twined souls. Ecthelion would hopefully be prepared for the small horde of adopted children Belle would take in once she was eventually wed to him. For a wedding would happen if Ecthelion courted Belle, even if Lucien would have to keep a dagger trained on the elf’s throat as he said his vows. His sister deserved to be treated with the utmost respect and courtesy that could be given to her and Lucien would make sure it would happen. Lucien didn’t think that Ecthelion would stop his courting when he found out Belle was barren, not like the other hobbits had. And, if, for some unholy reason Ecthelion did….well Lucien was quite happy to see to the elf’s painful demise.

It would not be the first time Lucien would have caused grievous physical injury to someone who had done that. But Lucien didn’t think Ecthelion was looking to start a large hobbit family, filling Belle up with child after child to birth. Ecthelion was looking to simply have Belle, to love her and her strange mix of polite manners, quick wit, and deft fingers that could find a coin purse and take it without anyone being the wiser.

“Remember this conversation, Ecthelion.” Lucien said as he finally stood up to walk away. “Because that was your first and only warning you’ll get from me.”

“Understood, Master Lucien.”

“Good.” With that final word Lucien walked away, content in his knowledge that if Ecthelion did hurt Belle at least the elf wouldn’t fight him when Lucien came for retribution. It would make the killing so much easier then. Whistling a merry tune he made his way back into the comforting safety of the palace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the rambly nature of this chapter, I am currently on a crapton of meds. It needed to happen though, the backwards time skip. Also a note that I didn't work into the chapter, but the hobbits of long long ago were approximately dwarf height but still of hobbity build. As time passed hobbits changed a little physically, they grew smaller in stature, especially after they moved to the Shire, and their aging sped up. :3


	15. So Close And So Far

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Have some Bofur feels.

Bofur could pinpoint the exact moment he realized that Bilbo was his One. It was within ten minutes of meeting the hobbit, the strange easily flustered creature fretting about Bombur’s pilfered cheese wheels and the lack thereof of a cheese knife. It was in that moment as the hobbit was flailing about helplessly with an invasion of dwarves in his home that Bofur felt the tug to his heart, the insistence that this hobbit was special. Beyond special. This hobbit held the soul that was meant for him to love above all else.

Well the soul Bofur was supposed to love above all else if Bilbo had been a dwarf.

The miner turned toymaker wasn’t much of a violent man, but he wanted to take his mattock to Gandalf’s face when he realized it. The dratted wizard had to pick the one being he’d been searching for his entire life and hurl him headlong into what amounted to a suicide mission. So Bofur used his particular talent of sharing far too much information than had been called for or was nessecary to try and scare the hobbit away.

He didn’t know if there was pride or trepidation in his heart when Bilbo came running after them shouting he’d signed the contract. Of course the hobbit had more in his heart than doilies and fretting nervously, he was Bofur’s One. That meant that the hobbit would be full of suprises because Bofur quite liked surprises, kept life from being dull.

Except he wasn’t quite fond of the surprise of having his soul mate be a hobbit. That he could have done without.

For all his seemingly laid back attitude Bofur was a good dwarf. He was a proud dwarf. He had family and clan that needed him there to help. He couldn’t throw it all to the wind and laugh at the laws that governed his people, bound his people. What he wouldn’t give for some traditions to be broken. What he wouldn’t have done to change the laws that would let him have what he needed. It hadn’t been done before, no dwarf had ever left their kinsmen and life behind even when their One had been revealed to be not a dwarf.

It had hurt, when he’d realized that Thorin felt the same. It wasn’t unheard of, sharing Ones. It was more believable that their sweet remarkable burglar was made for their King, just looking at how they fit together told everyone with sense what those two were. Except their entire Company was lacking everything remotely like sense (common or other). No one had guessed at Thorin’s feelings save Bofur.

It was why, as foolish as it had been, that Bofur had gone to Thorin. It was easy to talk to the king then, they had common ground, with their hobbit. The hobbit they could never have. The hobbit they could never even acknowledge as their One. No matter how brave, how good, how loyal, how clever, or how utterly necessary Bilbo Baggins was, he was not a dwarf and dwarves could not love outside their race. At least not obviously.

Bofur had wanted to punch himself in the face when he had the talk with Bilbo. He could see how the hobbit’s eyes had dimmed with every word, his body language closing up and curling inward to protect himself. Bofur didn’t ask, wouldn’t ask if Bilbo could feel it too, the tug in his heart, his soul screaming for the one who stood so very close but was still so very far away. He’d at least been able to keep the talk gentle, as he spoke about the traditions that governed his people (posing it as an explanation as to why Thorin was so disapproving of Kili’s flirtations with the barmaid). Bilbo was smart though, smartest of them all despite not grasping the basic dwarven concepts of mathematics and engineering. The hobbit had read between the lines and had known that nothing was ever going to happen.

It had worked out, seemingly, in the end. Bilbo had stayed with them in Erebor, had been given a powerful political position as being the ambassador to the elves (well it was a mixture of Thorin appointing Bilbo to the job because no dwarves wanted to take it and Thranduil saying that he would make no treaties or speak to any dwarf and if they wanted their kingdoms to be at peace then the hobbit would be who he would deal with). Yet he’d been more than that, he’d been the glue to keep everyone together, the water that soothed the fire of dwarven tempers, Bilbo had been a ray of sanity in the chaos that was the restoration and rebuilding of Erebor.

Thorin and Bofur had stuck together. Love had come long after the friendship and mutual understanding had been reached. Bofur could honestly say he did love Thorin as a partner, just as he knew Thorin loved him in return. Yet it wasn’t complete, it was lopsided, there were pieces missing that neither he nor Thorin possessed. It would always be such, they had made their peace with that. They wouldn’t have even gotten married if it hadn’t been Dain Ironfoot’s insistence that Thorin marry someone because ‘others had been starting to talk’.

The marriage ceremony had been interesting but tainted. Tainted for both Thorin and Bofur because the next day Bilbo was gone. A short note had been left, resigning from his position within the Mountain, leaving a few things to various Company members. No explanation, no mention to where he’d gone off to. Bilbo was just _gone_.

It probably hadn’t been fair, to imagine that Bilbo would stay within the Mountain, close at hand. That he’d be there to have his tea with the princes, to spend nights with Ori discussing knitting and scholarly pursuits, to come in and drag Thorin out of his office and kick him into bed, or to help Bofur deal with the massive quantities of paperwork he’d been given to deal with as Royal Consort. No, it definitely wasn’t fair, because for all the long hours Bilbo put in he never got much back. The hobbit, his hobbit, always returned to empty rooms and a cold bed. They hadn’t even given him a garden, they should have given him a garden. Hobbits needed gardens.

Hobbits needed a lot of things, apparently. Bofur wished that someone had given them a guide on the ‘Proper Care and Maintence of Hobbits’ before they had broken theirs. It was their fault, the miner knew it. Somehow, someway, the dwarves had accidentally started the Uthenera and it couldn’t be reversed, it couldn’t be fixed.

Bofur could see it in the way that Lobelia looked at Bilbo. He could see it in the way the elves treated the hobbit, with such respect and care and sorrow in their eyes. Even Beorn looked grief stricken at times, when Bilbo wasn’t looking.

Pride, fear, and anguish warred within Bofur’s heart. Oh his hobbit was so brave, to just matter-of-factly deciding to take the One Ring to Mordor while he was dying. It was so Bilbo Bofur wanted to laugh and cry. Always wanting to desperately to be of use, to always be doing something, to help as many as he possibly could. That desire always made Bofur want to tell the hobbit to just stop because he’d done enough, that he’d made everyone so proud, that he’d done what no one else could have done ten times before and it was okay to let someone else do this.

Bofur wanted to go with him. He wanted to protect that small beautiful body, he wanted to take up the burden of the ring from Bilbo. Except he couldn’t, Bofur wasn’t stupid. He could remember being under the thrall of the dragon sickness, when he’d betrayed Bilbo by letting Thorin dangle him over a cliff. Bofur hadn’t been able to shake it then, how could he try to shake the power of the Ring?

He couldn’t. He wouldn’t have been able to. Thorin wouldn’t be able to either, already susceptible to its call with his Durin blood. Not that it would necessarily make Thorin into a monster but it would bring the gold sickness back, in such a way that not even Bilbo could drag Thorin out of it again. They also had a kingdom to rule and protect. They couldn’t go with him.

And it killed him as he acknowledged it. Accepted that his One would face the horrors of Mordor without him. Accepted that Thorin’s One would face the horrors of the Ring without him. Bilbo would face this fate without them, and the knowledge tasted like ash in his mouth. It felt wrong, even though it was the right choice. It felt so wrong, but it was the right choice. Bofur reminded himself.

Pressing his forehead against Thorin’s they breathed together, clutching at each other as they prayed broken words to the Valar, to Eru, to any and all that would listen to keep their One safe. They prayed that if the worst was to happen that it would be swift and painless. They prayed that Bilbo would return to them and return to them whole. And as they prayed, Bofur could feel his mind being made up.

There would be a garden for Bilbo to have when he returned. There would be a garden filled with the bright green growing things that Bilbo was so fond of. There would be flowers and herbs, fruits and vegetables, trees and shrubs. There would be the most beautiful garden in all of Middle Earth for Bilbo to return to, Bofur didn’t care if he had to find elves and bribe them into helping it would be done. He would give this to the hobbit who held such a large piece of his soul in his small hands. It would be the sanctuary Bilbo deserved in life, and if….and if Bilbo didn’t return to them with his heart still beating in his chest, it would be the grandest grave befitting of a hobbit who had changed the fortune of kingdoms and the world. It would be grave of the hearts of the King and his Consort. For wherever their hobbit went their hearts always followed, in life and in death.


	16. Riding Dwarves is Unsanitary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lobelia disapproves of the options of transportation given to her

“No.”

“Lobelia you have to.”

“No.”

“Lobelia we can’t just walk into Mordor.”

“Watch me.”

“ _Lobelia_.”

“It’s rabid and diseased and quite improper for a gentlehobbit to even be near one.”

“Shush you needn’t talk about the dwarves like that. You might hurt their feelings.”

The words were thrown back and forth with practiced ease. Bilbo didn’t even need to look up to know that Lobelia was throwing him a nasty look that promised retribution of some sort. They were to be off soon and Bilbo was checking the saddle of his pony when Lobelia had come to him demanding to know why there were so many ponies. He had told her that they were to be riding them for as long as their journey allowed it, which had circled to their current predicament.

Hobbits did not, as a rule, ride ponies. They did not ride horses or go in boats either. In fact hobbits quite detested most forms of travel that had their feet not on solid ground. Carts and wagons were the only exception and even then it was rare. Hobbits felt safest when connected to the earth and when that connection was taken away. Well…

Bilbo had long since grown comfortable with the disconnect. It had been out of necessity, it was either ride the pony or explain to the dwarves why hobbits felt unsafe on ponies or wearing boots or…well… Bilbo had learned to appreciate riding a pony.

Lobelia made a noise of derision in the back of her throat. A faint smile curled Bilbo’s lips upwards as he glanced at Lobelia finally, amused at her hateful glare at the pony that had been designated hers. It made his smile grow wider as the pony glared right back at Lobelia, elvish ponies who knew that they would be as beautifully strange as their masters.

“You’re riding the pony or you’re riding a dwarf.”

“Fine I’ll ride the pony. They’re more sanitary and less prone to communicable diseases.”

Turning her head up at the pony and sniffing she marched away from the stable. Bilbo couldn’t stop the chuckle at her antics. It was nice to laugh, especially after the rather lengthy day before when Lobelia and Primula had added the newest images of his vallaslin on his back. They had covered the tender skin with bandages, and had wrapped the cut on his arm with a good slathering of elvish medicine.

It was so strange to know that Thranduil was privy to all the hobbit secrets. Of course the woodland elves had always been considered closer kin than the high elves, and Bilbo knew the stories of the Sacking of Arlathon, the Betrayal of the Durgenlen, and the March of the Elvhen. He knew that it had been Thranduil’s people who had come to the hobbits’ aide when no one else had, he knew it had been Thranduil’s kingdom that had sheltered the broken and bruised hobbits. He just hadn’t known that Thranduil himself had been there, that over half the elves in Mirkwood could remember the tales of his people as something more than a story. That those who hadn’t been there knew of it anyway because the elves of Mirkwood had decided that it had been important to their combined history.

He was startled out of his thoughts when a massive elf strode into the stable. Bilbo recognized him from Elrond’s party from Rivendell, and had caught glimpses of him years ago during the first exciting trip to the Last Homely House. The elf had paid Bilbo little heed when the hobbit had been in Rivendell, but now it seemed that all of the warrior’s intense focus was placed solely on him.

“You are a hard hobbit to find, Master Baggins. I’m glad to see some things haven’t changed.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t know…wait what?”

“Ah so you don’t….ah… I see.” The warrior stroked his chin for a moment in thought before brightening.

“Glorfindel at your service.” The elf bowed gracefully. “I was a very dear friend to one of your ancestors. A clever cheeky sneaky hobbit lass who could disappear in the middle of a ray of sunlight. You have her demeanor and her skill when it comes to finding shiny objects that don’t belong to you.”

The elf’s jovial nature dimmed as he looked down at Bilbo. “I’m sorry that you are falling into the Waking Sleep. You are doing us all such a service and I owe your ancestor a great deal for all that she did for a dear friend of mine. If there’s anything in my power to grant you, to give you peace of mind while you are on your journey then ask it of me. Your heart is heavy enough without adding burdens to it.”

Bilbo didn’t know what surprised him more. That Glorfindel, Glorfindel the Balrog Slayer, was offering to grant him a request because the mighty elf owed a distant ancestor some sort of debt or that Glorfindel obviously knew hobbitish and had automatically translated Uthenera to its proper name rather than use the more common elvish name.

If it had been anyone else or anything else that had approached him with such a statement Bilbo would have stammered out a ‘no need, please just forget about it but thank you’. Except debts were powerful things, not easily broken or forgotten, especially to the high elves. If Glorfindel said there was one, then there was one, one that had likely existed for centuries. Who knew when the next time a hobbit that was descended from this unknown ancestor would wander across Glorfindel’s path? It could be even more centuries of waiting, and that would be cruel. Bilbo was anything but cruel.

“There is one thing…” Bilbo felt his cheeks flushing as he looked down. His heart beat erratically for a moment. “The dwarves of Erebor aren’t as strong as they’d like to make everyone think they are. It would ease my mind if you could help protect them while I’m away and on this journey. They’re very stubborn and lack common sense and tend to get themselves into giant messes without meaning to most of the time and the rest it’s on purpose to put me into an early grave. They’re a vexing people who never realize that they need help and if someone as powerful and intelligent as you are nearby to bodily drag them out of trouble… I just want them to be safe, I need them to be safe.”

Glorfindel carefully knelt down into the straw, still having to bend down slightly so he could look Bilbo in the eye. His right hand went over his heart and his face was solemn. “I will protect all you hold dear for as long as I am able, Bilbo Baggins Master Burglar and Ringbearer, this I swear until I die or you release me.” His face gentling he gave Bilbo a teasing grin. “Do not fret, I’ve been looking after surly emotionally inept warriors longer than your people have existed. It will be quite entertaining for me. Just imagine an elf protecting the line of Durin. I think I might help them redecorate a bit too. Ecthelion always hated pastels. Oh this is going to be _glorious_.”

All the comforting warmth Bilbo had felt at the beginning of Glorfindel’s oath began to dissipate. Ecthelion…that name sounded familiar and tugged at Bilbo’s heartstrings, though the hobbit couldn’t figure out why. No, the more important matter was rounding up the others and getting on their way before Thorin heard that Bilbo had asked an elf to look after Erebor (but more importantly its King and Consort, it hadn’t been explicitly stated but Bilbo knew Glorfindel would watch out for all the members of the Company that still remained within Erebor’s fortified walls). The King Under the Mountain would probably skin Bilbo alive if Bilbo was within easy killing distance, which Bilbo planned not to be. A long suffering sigh escaped Bilbo which only seemed to spur Glorfindel on.

Was it his fate to be surrounded by people who liked to antagonize one another? Probably.

“Master Glorfindel _please_ do not do anything that will start a war.”

“Master Baggins I can’t make any promises on that.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

Glorfindel laughed brightly and bombastically as he stood up. Patting Bilbo on the shoulder the high elf nodded towards the door.

“We’d best get going. I need to tell my Lord Elrond that I will not be going to Rivendell with him and you need to say your final goodbyes.”

Bilbo nodded in acquiescence, knowing that in a couple of hours he would be leaving Mirkwood behind. That doing so would likely mean he would never see his friends here again, that he would never see Thorin and Bofur again. He was painfully aware that if he didn’t die on his way to Mordor (which he didn’t plan on doing, because if he died then Lobelia or Primula would likely have to carry the Ring and he would not have them suffer the dark taint of it) then he’d probably die on the way back. His future was grim and he was leaving most of what he loved behind this day likely forever.

It wasn’t a happy thought, but he knew that it must be done. It had to be done, by him. Yavanna had said as much and he couldn’t, wouldn’t, refuse the Green Lady. It was sheer stupidity to ignore the Valar and Bilbo did pride himself in his intelligence. Not that blind faith was smart all the time, but the Green Lady was trustworthy, was his mother in a roundabout way. Mothers did not send their children into danger if there was any safer (or saner) viable course of action available. There wasn’t, he knew it in his bones. Yavanna loved and protected her children.

She loved him and would protect him to the best of her ability, even if it was ultimately just delaying the inevitable.

With that thought in his head he went back inside the palace. No more rest, no more preparation. It was time to say goodbye.


	17. An Interlude With Aiwendil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aiwendil does not approve of this.

“Aiwendil I have a problem.”

Those were four words that could ruin anyone’s day. Really, they could. Yet those were words that coming from Aule meant that something somewhere in somewhen had gone massively irrevocably wrong and that he was supposed to fix it! Oh no! He was not going to fix it! Not at all! Susan was going to have her kits soon and had asked for his presence. No! He was not going to even look in the direction of the Lord, not at all!

Why did he always look?

“Everyone has a problem. I can’t be surprised to hear you do, _again_. I’m busy! If you want someone to help you clean up your mess go talk to Curumo or Olorin. They actually care about problems on your scale.”

Aiwendil or Radaghast, who was he supposed to be again? Ah it didn’t much matter they were both him and both not him all at the same time. Too many thoughts! Too many strands, calm! Think, focus, on Susan and her kits, of the forest still trying to heal from the darkness within Dol Guldor. Nasty icky business that ruined his mushrooms.

Why did evil things always have to ruin his mushrooms?

“No, I can’t go to them. Saruman thinks like me and Olorin is busy. Besides you…you understand her.”

“’Her’?”

It was one word that reverberated through Aiwendil. Yavanna was his dearest friend, and he loves her dearly. She is a mother, a sister, an aunt, a cousin, she is family and she is dear, so very dear to him. It was enough that his shape flickers for a moment, that it shifted to what Aiwendil was and is and not Radaghast. He breathes in though, and lets the cool air calm him for at least a moment. Not like Olorin’s pilfered hobbit pipeweed but it will do.

“Yes, Yavanna. I’ve…hurt her.”

Aiwendil saw it in Aule’s face, the remorse and pain, and the desperation because he does not fully understand what it was he has done to break his wife. It made Aiwendil sigh, because there is this in Aule. It was only the unfailing love, the sheer greatness and depth of it, that has saved Aule from Morgoth’s fate. Almost all the maiar know this, that it is Yavanna’s love, her gentle touch, her laugh, her existence in this world that keeps the influence of evil at bay. Sometimes they don’t understand it, how Yavanna could have fallen for Aule, but it was here in this moment where Aule stands before Aiwendil aching and broken because he has hurt Yavanna and he wishes to fix it.

“You have. You always have.”

He was not kind. Not like Olorin. He had no silver words or gentle tongue for fools. Aiwendil didn’t consider himself haughty, just unsuited for being a guide for those removed from Yavanna. He was half thought thoughts and desperate wild energy, he was a guardian of the forgotten reaches of Arda, he was the walker in the woods, and the tender of gardens and fields, the friend of Ents, and the savior of the shapeshifters. He was not clever in the ways of politics or even tact.

It didn’t bother him that Aule looks as if he’s been struck.

“What?”

He sighed again, long suffering and tormented. Of course it’s him who has to explain this. Not Curumo who speaks the language of power and consuming passions, or Orlorin who knows how to deliver everything with a great deal of tact (unless monumental stupidity is happening right before him). No, it was poor poor Aiwendil who has to explain this.

Why couldn’t Eru strike him down right now? It would be a kindness, really….except he did have to help deliver Susan’s kits and who would watch the woods? Certainly not Curumo, always nattering on about his delicate sinuses and how he had such terrible allergies. If Curumo had his way all the trees would be gone. Which was silly because trees were such lovely intelligent things…if you knew how to talk to them.

“I hurt her? How did I hurt her? Aiwendil! Tell me!”

“You never listen. Not with your heart, not with your head, not really! No, no, you have been far too focused on all of your own issues and problems and schemes that you’ve lost sight of her and stopped hearing her voice and stopped talking _with_ her. I’m not even living near you two anymore and I know this. She hasn’t even told me, never complains to others about you. She sees your marital problems as being private except it isn’t. Not anymore, not when it starts affecting things. So if you make me spell every thing I know of that you’ve done to hurt her, then you’ve lost all your empathy and understanding and I can’t actually help you there.”

Aule, one of the greatest Lords of the Valar stared at Aiwendil in shock. He turned his dark gaze to his hands, large and rough, well suited for forging, mining, or waging war. He looked lost, to Aiwendil. The wizard supposed he was lost, for he was beginning to fully understand how far he had strayed from his wife. How deep the rift between them had become.

It was perhaps telling, to Aiwendil at least, how different Aule was from Morgoth. For in this moment of clarity, where he realized how much he stood to lose if he kept walking, he looked horrified. Aule did not want power for power’s sake alone, he wanted the power to protect his love from harm. He was hard so she could be soft. His reason for being was wrapped up and tangled in Yavanna so much, that the realization of how far he had gone from her, how alone he was struck a chord of fear.

“Go.” Aiwendil knew it wasn’t his place to order Aule around. Yet he knew that the Lord’s continued presence would bring nothing good. Not while he was in this state. Things usually ended up broken when Aule got emotional and Aiwendil would rather it not be the trees. It took him a rather long time to get them this way and if Aule went and smashed them it’d take even longer to get them back to something similar. “Go and think about…well whatever it is you need to think of.”

Aiwendil turned from Aule and began to walk away. Best to be getting to safer ground if Aule didn’t follow his suggestion.

Yet he did. Aiwendil could feel it as Aule left, for he was much less Aiwendil and more like Radaghast. Which was what he would rather be, being Aiwendil was a bit disconcerting. A head so clear and straightforward. No, the circles and curves were better. The wibbly wobbly nature of everything that suited Radaghast better, made much more sense and no sense at all. Which was how he preferred it. It wasn’t right to be Aiwendil, especially since his mission was not over. No, no it probably never would be or it could be very soon. Depended on things, people, elves, kings, dwarves, hobbits, the weather, butterflies, squirrels, and oh that was new. What would a squirrel have to do with his potential end or not-end to his mission? Hmmm that would have to be investigated thoroughly.

A frantic yip caught his attention from his spiraling thoughts.

“What? Already? Can’t be…can it? Alright alright I’m coming. No need to panic.”

And it was with that that Radaghast settled back into his skin and mind and paid no more attention to the greater workings of the world….for a time.


	18. Left Behind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tauriel has always admired her Mother.

There was never anyone braver than her mother. Tauriel may have grown out of her childhood hundreds of years ago. She may be a well-respected Guard Captain, well respected doesn’t even cut it. She was the best damn guard captain Greenwood, Mirkwood, had ever seen or had. She had battled spiders, she had gone to Dol-Goldur to fight, she never ever left a man behind if he still had breath in his lungs, she used cleverness over brawn, she prized loyalty and honor above all else, she worked with the thieves guild (she was not crooked, they had an understanding, an understanding that had lasted centuries and had helped keep Mirkwood and the surrounding areas safe), and she was never ever cruel. Tauriel was who she was because her parents had given her an example of who she wanted to be, they had loved her as much as they had loved her siblings, had carefully helped build the solid foundation that had helped her rise to the top. Yet for all her current greatness, all her knowledge and skill, her mother still continued to awe her.

And show her up accidentally.

Tauriel knew Belle…Bilbo hadn’t done it out of spite. In fact it had soothed Tauriel’s wounded pride when she had heard the story. Mo…Bilbo had been the one to evade capture, sh…he had been the one to smuggle Thirteen dwarves out from under her nose. An impressive feat of cleverness and luck that had always been the trademark of that wonderfully kind hearted soul that had once been her mother, confidant, and hero.

Really, looking back on it Tauriel should have known. Only a Master of the shadow crafts could have done what had been done, and while Bilbo might not remember what had happened long ago, a part of his soul had an ingrained instinct towards evasion, deception, and slight of hand. Part of Bilbo’s luck was simply that and other was the never truly forgotten instincts of a slumbering past self. Tauriel had ever met two Masters, her mother and her uncle.

Belle had taught her so long ago the workings of the Thieves Guild. Tauriel knew her mother and uncle were members, however distantly tied. ‘All respectable thieves belong, and all respectable thieves show their membership, because it is what distinguishes us from the criminals who wish to hurt or kill others. Can’t make much money in the long term going about stabbing people over a few scraps of bread or pieces of copper. No, a thieves and burglars of repute know who to take from, when to take it, and to never ever sully their hands with violence. Not to say, da’len, that sometimes the law shouldn’t capture us. Sometimes we need reminders that the world is not a game, sometimes we need to be jailed because we cross a line, but sometimes guards also need to have an understanding that the world is rarely black and white. If it was we wouldn’t have free-will, da-len, and free-will is the most beautiful and terrible gift given to us all.’

And when Tauriel had declared she was going to become Guard Captain one day Belle had only beamed at her with pride. Belle had never tried to dissuade her, never tried to dampen her spirits. Belle didn’t change what she taught her adopted daughter though. ‘You’ll need to know the ins and outs if you ever want to catch anyone worth catching’. Tauriel could have cried because her mother just accepted, without question, without hesitation, the hopes and dreams of her motley crew of children. There was no dream or ambition too small or too grand. Their wishes and wants carried weight. It didn’t matter to Belle if her child was a hobbit or strange little elfling. She loved them without condition.

Turning her eyes to her nut brown skin of her hands Tauriel had to smile. Belle had never questioned why her daughter was darker than the rest, it’d be silly to do so, Tauriel knew her mother would think. Because Tauriel’s skin was her skin and her hair was her hair and her eyes her eyes and as they all seemed to in good order and clean then there was nothing to be upset or wonder about. Mother and Father had loved her, all of her, good and ill and normal and not. Their love had helped her love herself, to ignore the startled looks of outsiders when they saw her. She was beautiful and no one else could convince her otherwise.

Not that many had tried to after they learned she would calmly and respectfully help their face run into her fist…repeatedly.

Looking at Uncle Glorfindel and King Thranduil her heart ached. Tauriel had never been old enough to go on ‘adventures’ with Belle. Her Mother had always been her _Mother_ a figure almost larger than life even when she turned gray and old. She was used to being left behind by her, not in a malicious or hurtful sense. There had just been no feasible way for her to grow up enough before death took her mother from her to walk into a battle with her.

King Thranduil had. She remembered a time when she had been permitted to call him ‘Uncle’ and crawl into his lap like an imp. She could remember the stories Thranduil had told to her and her siblings, the cleverness and bravery Belle and Lucien had in them in spades. Outwitting so many, rescuing their people, or protecting Greenwood from unsavory sorts. Thranduil had been there with her for most of these exploits, had watched her mother and uncle best people so much bigger and stronger than them physically.

‘It is always the smallest person or the tiniest action that carries the most weight’ Thranduil had told her once, fondly looking at a silly monetarily worthless trinket Belle had given to her King and adopted brother.

Uncle Glorfindel had even more amazing stories than Thranduil. Because while Tauriel _loved_ stories of her mother and saw her always as a hero. Uncle Glorfindel told her of her Father and Gondolin. He weaved stories like tapestries. Her mother was a hero, but her father was a legend. Ecthelion was a quiet elf contemplative elf, with a presence that took up all the free space in a room. He was not verbose like Uncle Glorfindel nor did he speak much on his own deeds. Uncle Glorfindel spoke enough for the both of them, telling her of feats of cleverness and warrior’s strength and honor that would be known by all through the Ages. Uncle Glorfindel loved to remind Ecthelion of that, always delighted by the low warning grumbles and faint hint of red that would paint the elf’s cheeks.

Tauriel missed them so much, her parents. Ecthelion had been broken by Belle’s death. Yet he had clung to living long enough to see all his children (hobbit and elven) grown before succumbing to the Fading. It had been mercifully swift when it’d happened.

What had shocked her was Uncle Egalmoth’s death. She hadn’t seen it coming honestly. He’d been so terribly sad when Belle had died but when Ecthelion had passed… Egalmoth had just followed without warning. She hadn’t known then, or realized what Egalmoth had felt towards Belle and Ecthelion. She hadn’t realized until he had died and it had struck her like a blow. Because gentle ever laughing Egalmoth had loved her parents as more than friends, and perhaps it had been Egalmoth’s presence that had kept Ecthelion from Fading so quickly. Their love keeping them afloat long enough to make sure all the children were safe and grown before succumbing to the pain. She had never known that Egalmoth had been more than just a dear friend to her parents, yet when she looked back on it she could see it.

All the gentle touches shared between them. The multiple times Egalmoth had spent the night to the point it was weirder when he wasn’t there than when he was. The soft ever present love, not hidden out of shame, but carefully unspoken all the same.

Now Tauriel couldn’t help be wonder and ache for her Father and Uncle. Where were they? Where had they gone to? What had happened that had caused Bilbo to begin to fall into the Waking Dream and Fade? She had asked Thranduil privately, for he seemed to know the reason. Her instincts said it was because of the dwarves. Where could Ecthelion and Egalmoth be? Bilbo’s soul had obviously reached out to unconsciously grasp for the two open spots in his heart. Foolish tenderhearted mother…

Tauriel could only pray Ecthelion and Egalmoth had been brought back and that Bilbo would find them. That they could save Bilbo from this pain. For love like theirs had to supersede what Bilbo felt for the idiot thick headed stubborn dwarves. Ecthelion and Egalmoth would keep Bilbo from leaving Tauriel far too soon and ensure that Bilbo would live through the quest.

As Bilbo’s back faded from view on the back of his pony Tauriel finally managed to look at the others. Her eyes drifted from her kin to the dwarves she had once housed in her cells. The King Under the Mountain looked as if someone had ripped out his heart violently. His Consort looked little better, tanned skin blanched, dark eyes wide. Both dwarves looked wrecked in ways she had never seen before. Distraught was a word too light to be used. Frowning at them she looked back at the disappearing blurs that were the Fellowship.

“Your Majesty, what’s wrong?” Dwalin, the head of the King’s personal guard (and one of the more unruly former prisoners), asked in a strangely gentle and worried voice.

“He had my coat. The one that was taken from me here. It was on his pack with his sleeping roll. Poorly hidden but it was there. I saw it as he rode out.”

The large dwarf carefully laid a hand on his oldest friend’s shoulder. An attempt to comfort his King. Though the burly dwarf soon turned his head and looked at Bofur.

“You’re upset by that as well?” Dwalin asked in a disbelieving voice.

“No…he sneezed. Always had trouble with them ponies, our Burglar. I half expected him to reach into his pocket and remark that he’d forgotten his handkerchief again and that we’d have to hold off on all this dreary pomp and circumstance so he could go get his. You know how he _always_ forgets his handkerchiefs. Except he reached into his pocket and drew out…he had that dratted piece of cloth I tore from my pocket years ago. He still has it. He held onto it and kept it and…” Bofur trailed off. Looking lost, both the king and consort looked terribly lost. “Why does he have our things?”

Tauriel felt her anger sparking. Were they so blind? Were they so utterly disbelievingly stupid? Her golden eyes narrowed as she turned her entire body towards the dwarves of Erebor.

“It is because he loves you, you dimwitted stone hearted bastards! He is going die on this trip most likely. He is going to suffer. That doesn’t even factor in his declining condition! He is going to Mordor, to destroy the source of all greatest misfortune and evil in Middle Earth because he loves you! I can’t even fathom _why_. You aren’t family and you obviously don’t understand him at all if you can’t comprehend why he has taken two tangible pieces of you to go with him. He can’t have you, he can’t have your hearts, he can’t have a long happy life, but he can keep reminders of why he’s going to do this quest. He’s taken them so he can probably pretend, if only for a little while during the night, that he’s loved and protected as he faces evil men, elves, and dwarves have all flinched at and run away and terror.”

Her tirade was met with horrified faces. She didn’t care, not right now. Tauriel felt anger thrumming through her veins. She hadn’t lost her temper in years, decades actually. Growling she shrugged off the calming hand of Glorfindel and marched back into Mirkwood’s palace.

She could have accepted Bilbo going off on the quest more easily if she could have gone too. She could have accepted all of this if she could have had more time. If Bilbo hadn’t been Fading.

Punching the wall she tried to ignore the tears in her eyes and the soft shaking gasps of breath that weren’t sobs of any kind. Her free hand clutched at the necklace she had been given only hours before. _Take it as my promise that I will come back to you, my love._ Legolas’ melodic voice echoed in her mind. 

She was used to being left behind by Belle.

But not by Legolas.

The aching loneliness was something she’d never felt before. This pain was probably just a shade of what she’d feel if Legolas never came back. She’d understood in a distant abstract way about the Fading. But right now as fear, sadness, and anger mixed in her heart and caused her visceral almost physical pain she understood. She understood now and it made her even angrier and heartbroken, because this was what her father had felt, this was what her uncle had felt, and this was what her beloved mother was now feeling.

“Come back to me, you better come back to me or I’ll never forgive you.” She whispered angry and broken, leaning against the wall because Legolas was no longer her for her to lean against. “I’ll kill you myself if you die. I swear it. Don’t leave me behind forever.”

Tauriel got no reply to her desperate angry words. Legolas was already gone and she could not follow him, not on this adventure.

“Don’t make me Fade, my love. _Please_.”


	19. He Won't Come Back Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short but powerful punch to the heart.

Thorin had thought, perhaps, that the moment after the Battle of Five Armies had been the worst experience in his life, when it came to Bilbo Baggins. When he had realized that the hobbit was missing. That the last Thorin had seen of him hadn’t been Bilbo’s back as he’d gone away with Gandalf to the camps of elves and men, but he’d seen the stupidly brave little hobbit hamstring Azog before he lost consciousness.

It had been then, that the grief and terror of nearly losing Fili and Kili and now having absolutely lost Bilbo Baggins, that the Dragon Sickness had fled from his mind. He had hurt Bilbo in ways that were unforgivable, especially since the hobbit was his One. He had hurt the one being in all of Arda who loved him enough to defy him. He had called him names that were not true. He had threatened to kill Bilbo.

Then Bilbo came back, had waded through orcs and wargs, had waded through death and hell. Bilbo had come back to protect the dwarf who had betrayed him (not the other way around). Bilbo had come back and saved the lives of him and his heirs again.

The hobbit had paid the ultimate price then, Thorin had thought, trading his life for those who hadn’t loved him enough.

How wrong he was to think that had been the worst moment. It could have been if Bilbo had actually been dead, instead of gravely injured and with the elves. The elves always seemed to be there to help Bilbo when the dwarves ended up hurting him. The way they acted around the hobbit, enveloping him into their ranks without a bat of an eyelash. Thorin had always wondered at that, why elves seemed to be inexplicably drawn to hobbits and hobbits to elves.

No, his mind couldn’t even begin to try and unravel the intricacies of the mysterious bond between elves and hobbits.

His mind wasn’t good for much anything right now. Not when his heart was breaking and hatred, poisonous and black began to eat at him. Hatred, not for any other soul but his very own.

The sounds of items breaking barely even filtered into his consciousness. It wasn’t him, he knew that. He was frozen and broken under the grief and rage that warred within him. He’d never heard Bofur rage like this before, the cheerful minor roaring and flinging himself headfirst into destroying the room around him. Searching for an outlet to ease the emotions roiling inside him. Bofur was always calmer, had always been the one to find constructive (for a dwarf) ways of dealing with emotional turmoil. It should be Thorin roaring and lost to a beserker fever, it should be Thorin with the bloody hands, panting and heaving in rage.

Yet the ‘should be’s held no weight in reality. Not when he could feel the color leeching from his world, turning it to a desolate stone colored monotone. It happened, this always happened when a dwarf recognizes he had Betrayed his One. It had begun, and had been reversed, after the Battle of Five Armies. The color had come back when Bilbo had smiled at him from the bed far too big for his body, had held his hand, and forgiven Thorin. Had reassured they could work on rebuilding their friendship, that all had not been lost. While Thorin had not been able to keep himself firmly planted by Bilbo’s side while the hobbit had recovered Bofur had been able to. Bofur, the only other being in the existence of Arda who Thorin trusted with Bilbo, had stayed. Bofur had been the one to help Bilbo get around, to relearn how to walk. Bofur who had always come to Thorin and spoke for hours of how Bilbo had been recovering, how the silly ridiculous hobbit was trying to help any and every way he could and it took all of Bofur’s skills to keep Bilbo resting.

There would be no mending this hurt. There would be no fixing this Betrayal. There would be no recovery and no opportunity to ask for forgiveness. They didn’t deserve it. Not when they couldn’t give Bilbo what he deserved, what he had earned so rightly.

No wonder he had fled the Mountain when he realized he was dying. No wonder he had hidden with the elves. Here Bilbo could at least pretend to not be rejected. Here Bilbo could deal with the heartbreak of seemingly being unwanted, unloved in the way he had wanted to be, by not having to face it. That sort of cowardice could be acceptable, Thorin didn’t think he could have stood staying sane and trying to keep up appearances while having who he wanted dangled in front of him with someone else and pretending everything was fine.

Thorin wanted to say he was completely shocked by Tauriel’s proclamation that Bilbo loved them. He wasn’t. He’d known, in the back of his mind, that Bilbo loved him. There was no other explanation that could be given for all the things he’d done for Thorin, for Bofur. The love of a One was never one sided, even if the One was of another race. He had known it was likely, it was probably inevitable, even if he could do nothing about it. He had been willfully blind to it, had turned his stubbornness to ignoring it. He and Bofur had, because it was all they could really do. It would have been worse, they’d both reasoned, if they had told Bilbo and all three of them knew that they could never be together. Not fully, not in the way the Fates had designed them to be, because Bilbo was a hobbit and Thorin and Bofur were dwarves.

They couldn’t.

And now Bilbo was planning on committing suicide by adventure. Not on the way there, Thorin knew Bilbo well enough to know the hobbit planned on seeing the Ring chucked into Mount Doom. Bilbo would not let himself die before his task was complete. No, the hobbit would likely hurl himself into the Mount Doom as well to make sure the Ring was gone. Or he’d become careless on the way back. He would make it look like an accident, a twist of fate, so Ori, Fili, and Kili wouldn’t be too broken by it.

Thorin hated how little Bilbo thought of himself and his importance to others. Bilbo was perhaps the most important being in the world, right now. Yet he was dying of a painful hereditary disease and scorned by the two he loved most, and Thorin doubted Bilbo imagined himself to be anything great or grand.

Reaching out Thorin grabbed Bofur, the only thing of color left in his world. The toymaker turned Consort didn’t come easily, his body trembling with his overload of emotions. The king tugged harder, bringing the other dwarf into his arms where he held him. Thorin drowned himself in the familiarity of Bofur’s scent, the feel of the other man’s solid dwarven body. He clung to the color, brown, beautiful brown while Bofur panted and growled but held onto Thorin in return.

They didn’t, couldn’t, speak. Not to each other, not right now. It couldn’t be formed into words, the pain that had lodged itself in their hearts, howling and fierce, straining against societal conventions, straining against logic, and straining against the distance being placed between them and their now broken Burglar. They would never let it truly be free, they would not let their pain run rampant and destroy what Bilbo was working so hard to save. They would make Erebor thrive. They would make Erebor survive the coming darkness. They would make their people safe and happy. They would keep themselves sane and alive.

They were dwarves. They were mountains made flesh. They would stand under the hardships and endure, they would endure living for the rest of their lives. To honor the One they could not have, the One they hurt so deeply. The One they loved, and always would love.


	20. Bearer of Bad News

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Glorfindel's favorite pass time is molesting Dwalin.

It had been two months since the Fellowship left Mirkwood. Two long months of no news on the progress of the rag tag group of misfits tromping through wilderness on a nearly suicidal quest. This was one of those particularly painful moments of boredom for Glorfindel, stuck in Erebor, banned from the Throne Room _again_ , with nothing useful to distract himself with. He was worried, of course. Bilbo and Lobelia were dear to him, or at least their souls were. He’d known Legolas since the elf had been a small child. Aragorn he’d helped to raise, helping to teach him martial skills. If they died he’d be upset, probably cry, then go hunt down Durin’s Bane and kill it.

Because that was how he dealt with grief. Killing monsters. It was a constructive way to deal with it such emotions no matter what Elrond muttered under his breath.

Yet there was a more pressing problem. He was bored. Painfully, dreadfully, bored. He was going to go insane. He was going to start frothing at the mouth, throwing things, and start speaking gibberish if someone didn’t do something soon.

Which is why he got so excited when he saw his favorite dwarf.

Not that Dwalin was always his favorite. Dwalin was his favorite right now because the warrior was there, wearing his off duty armor, and looked to have no pressing concerns.

_Perfect_

“Master Dwalin!”

Glorfindel smirked as he leaned down and wrapped himself around the bald dwarf. It made his heart so very happy to hear the string of Khuzdul that fell from Dwalin’s mouth, aware that the dwarf was cursing, asking Mahal to save him, and asking for the patience to not kill the elf and start a war. It was cute, that the dwarf thought he stood a chance of killing him if Dwalin came at him with killing intent. Not to say Dwalin wasn’t a good warrior, he was, very much so, but he wasn’t quite up to where Glorfindel was either. Nuzzling the top of Dwalin’s head Glorfindel made a happy little purring noise, always aware of how uncomfortable it always made the dwarves.

There was a long suffering sigh as Dwalin tried to get free and failed. Glorfindel had captured him fair and square and he wasn’t going to let go. Not at all. Well not unless Ecthelion or Egalmoth decided that it was time to rescue the Captain of the Guard. Yet they were going to be in the Throne Room for hours yet, giving Glorfindel plenty of time to play with his newest playmate.

It was hard to reconcile the fact his best friends were now dwarves. Honestly he wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen Orcrist in Thorin’s hand, the blade had, for all intents and purposes, run away when Ecthelion had faded. The fact that the sword remained, because honestly dwarves and men were fools if they thought elvish weaponry, Gondolin weaponry, would remain in the hands of those they found unworthy. Orcrist was smarter than most and was loyal only to Ecthelion. If Orcrist had suffered being in Thorin’s care for more than a few months then….well Thorin Oakenshield was Ecthelion.

Glorfindel had thought he was going insane when Thorin and his Company of dwarves had come to Rivendell. He had admittedly stalked the dwarven king. For Thorin had seemed all the world, to be a shorter, thicker, bearded Ecthelion. There were parts of the king’s soul that had been so achingly familiar that Glorfindel was hard pressed not to go to Elrond and request to be sent on a ship West, because obviously his already tenuous grasp on reality was getting weaker. 

Elves did not come back as dwarves. It was unheard of. Not that reincarnation was a surprise, that happened all the time, and Glorfindel was proof of a much clearer cut version of it. Elves always came back as elves, men always came back as men, dwarves always came back as dwarves and always within the same bloodline, and hobbits came back as hobbits. It was just how it worked, because each race’s soul was different. Each race’s soul’s creation had been different. For Ecthelion to become a dwarf he had, for all intents and purposes, been maimed. Ecthelion’s soul had become smaller, memories he should have had if he were an elf had been taken away or hidden, the magic innate to elven kind had been taken, and pieces that should have been there were gone, as they always were in dwarves.

How could he reconcile that sometime between Ecthelion’s Fading and Thorin Oakenshield’s birth that Ecthelion had fucked up something so horrifically that Eru had practically destroyed his soul and sent him back? How could anyone think that that could happen to anyone they loved?

How had Egalmoth and Belle taken it?

It had been that thought that had driven Glorfindel to examine the rest of the Company. The cheerful miner that Glorfindel had originally ignored turned out to be Egalmoth. Which had sent Glorfindel’s spirits sinking. No, it couldn’t be, it shouldn’t be, and he was going to try and find his sanity because he obviously lost it.

Except he hadn’t.

Now he didn’t know what to do. Belle was back, but was Fading, Ecthelion was a dwarven king, and Egalmoth his consort. It was a mess. A horrible mess that he couldn’t fix.

He really should stop thinking of them as their past selves too.

Persuading Dwalin into a sparring match had been easy. Glorfindel knew that the dwarf did admire him, slightly, for his battle history. How many people could claim to fight with Glorfindel? To spar with him? Not many, and the elf suspected once he was long gone from the dwarven kingdom that Dwalin would boast about it.

“You have a tattoo.”

Dwalin had grunted out at him after their sparring match. The dwarf’s eyes were locked onto the left side of Glorfindel’s bare chest, a dark but curious frown on his lips.

“And? So do you.”

“Aye, but not like that. The style is akin to Bilbo’s.”

“Of course it is. A hobbit gave it to me.”

Glorfindel watched with unconcealed amusement as the grizzled warrior’s eyebrows knit together. Dwalin glared at the golden eagle tattoo like it had personally insulted him. It probably had, in its own way, Glorfindel mused. Here was a trusted, dear, companion of an adorable hobbit who seemed to dearly love inking his own skin. Why should some ‘poncy tree shagger’ have a hobbit tattoo while Dwalin never even got a chance to ask?

“How much do you know of hobbits, Master Dwalin?”

There was silence as Dwalin tried to desperately come up with something he knew that didn’t pertain only to Bilbo.

“They have big feet, like food, live in holes in the ground, like green things, and they all sport tattoos.”

“Points for effort.” Glorfindel laughed shaking his head. “But while all the previous statements are accurate it really shows how little you know of them.”

“Aye, well I would know more if our burglar had answered our questions. My ignorance isn’t my fault.”

“I’m not surprised he didn’t answer your questions. You are a dwarf afterall.”

“What does being a dwarf have anything to do with it?”

“Everything.”

Dwalin growled in irritation, the now red faced warrior bristling in the face of that answer. Glorfindel could guess what was going on inside that shiny bald head of his. Rolling his eyes good naturedly Glorfindel none too gently kicked the warrior.

“Would you like to know or would you prefer to shout at me for ‘insulting’ your people?”

“Explain.”

Glorfindel hummed for a moment, gathering his thoughts.

“Your people betrayed theirs.” It was as good a place as any to start. “Many many years ago, near the beginning of their existence. They had settled south of the River Running and West of the Sea of Rhun. In that time they were not the only people who lived there tribes of Men wandered the plains and sometimes Orcs from the Ash Mountains would come. It wasn’t long until raiding parties began attacking and targeting the hobbit settlements. It was still early on in the attacks that the hobbits went to the Iron Hills, seeking aid from a race that their hearts instinctually told them to trust. Your people turned them away at the gate, refusing to lend true aid to a race so ‘soft and weak’ as theirs, only letting the hobbits have fairly useless bits of trash in which to try and defend themselves with. Your people sent them back into what could easily be called a genocide. It was only luck and a great deal of desperation on the parts of the hobbits that some managed to get to Greenwood and get the help of the elves and ents that lived there. It was almost too late by then. When the ents and elves gathered up the survivors a little over three hundred hobbits were accounted for, three hundred out of several thousand. I was told by Thranduil, who had been there himself, that when the elves and ents left Greenwood to rescue the hobbits they had no trouble tracing the path that the hobbits had taken. For the trail had been marked by dead bodies and carrion birds for almost as far as the eye could see. The Men that were the greatest perpetrators of the crime were hunted down and destroyed.”

Glorfindel kept his tone light and easy, despite the horror he was relaying to Dwalin. It wasn’t like Glorfindel didn’t care, he had been just as horrified as the other elves when he had heard the story. He simply had not been there to witness the First March, he had not seen the greatest horrors first hand. It was easier to keep his voice from turning dark, from letting his fury over what the dwarves had done take control. It was best that he do this. That he keep his formidable temper from being unleashed.

“Mahal…”

The elf watched as Dwalin tried to assimilate the knowledge. Watched the pain, shame, and horror that warred on the dwarf’s face. The warrior bowed his head, taking in a deep breath.

“Aye I can understand now. Excuse me.”

Glorfindel didn’t try to stop the dwarf. It would be easier for the other to grasp what his people had helped almost do if he were alone. Getting up from where he had settled himself, Glorfindel gathered up his shirt and weapons and walked out of the training area.

It was only two or three hours later that Glorfindel found himself cornered by E…Thorin and Bofur. Time was hard to measure inside a mountain for non-dwarves, so Glorfindel was guessing, roughly at the passage of time. It was easier to think on time passing than to stare in the eyes of his once friends.

“Is it true?”

Thorin’s voice was rough and furious. Glorfindel was certain if he was shorter or Thorin was standing on a box, that his collar would have been gripped in an all too familiar way and he would have been hauled down. The elf had to admit he missed that, being furiously dragged forward by his best friend and stared at intimidatingly until he either confessed to whatever prank he had just played or given the information Ecthelion had been seeking.

“Iiiiif you’re talking about how your dwarven ancestors were giant bastards and helped nearly wipe out hobbits through inaction then yes, it’s true.”

Thorin sucked in a sharp breath, looking as if Glorfindel’s words had been a punch to the face. They were, actually, and Glorfindel had meant them to be. For all that Glorfindel dearly loved the souls of his friends, even as grotesquely mutilated as they were now, sometimes to be the best of friends you needed to punch them in the face. Repeatedly. Until they realized what they had done wrong.

“Is that why Thranduil turned his back on us?”

“Partially, yes. All the elves who helped rescue the hobbits from slavery and death, who helped shelter and heal them, hate dwarves. It doesn’t help that your kinsmen have done lots of other quite despicable things against us and others, and we have repaid them in kind. Yet that isn’t the sole reason. Dragons are juggernauts of destruction. You know this. It is a miracle in and of itself that Smaug was killed by Bard, if he didn’t have that single weakness nothing could have killed it. Well maybe I could have, but I’ve already fought against a giant evil monster that liked setting things on fire and died for it. I do not want to do so again. Thranduil was not going to risk the lives of his kinsmen, risk his entire kingdom, by pissing off what he assumed to be an indestructible beast. The decision to not help was simply made guilt free with his hatred. Tactically it was the soundest decision he made, and it wasn’t like Thranduil didn’t help at all. His army retreated but he did send his healers to Dale to help with the survivors and made sure they found a way to survive. _If_ you had gone near Dale you would have found healing and aide there.”

Glorfindel watched as Thorin turned red, his jaw clenching as his fingers flexed. There was fury in his gaze, but the fury was muted. The ever present grief that now resided in Thorin muted all the passion that Glorfindel knew the King had. Bofur looked no better, though he was not as angry at Glorfindel as he seemed to be angry at the past. Sighing Glorfindel looked at the dwarves.

“Would you like for me to explain the history of hobbits?”

It was the closest thing to an olive branch Glorfindel could offer. The knowledge… they would need it. He knew that. Leaving them in the shadows would be wrong.

“We would greatly appreciate it if you would.”

Bofur was the one who spoke, using the words that Thorin likely never would have. As always Egalmoth tended to smooth things over and ease the way with words rather than let Ecthelion’s desire to spite himself if it meant spiting his enemy have free reign.

“Then lead us to someplace private, Consort.”

Glorfindel followed the dwarves to the royal wing without complaint. Finding a chair that almost fit him (not quite, because everything in the mountain was too small) Glorfindel gracefully sprawled out on it. He watched the dwarves who had once been his friends for a moment, as they both got settled next to each other, their thighs touching.

“The first thing you should know about hobbits is that they are Yavanna’s children, her second born. They were made after the destruction of the Entwives that doomed the Ents into a dwindling existence that slowly went towards extinction. Eru heard her weeping over the dark fate of her children and over the eventual destruction of the things under her domain. To soothe her pain he gave her leave to make another race, yet it wasn’t just permission he gave her. He gave Yavanna most of the same song that he had used to create the elves. She made them quite unique, if I say so myself, but it does not negate the fact that hobbits are essentially our cousins…perhaps even closer than cousins, half siblings? Ah, it doesn’t much matter how closely related our races are technically, what matters is that we _are_. Hobbits don’t distinguish themselves from ents or elves in their language. It is one of the few words that has stayed consistent throughout their history, a surprise since their language is as adaptive and malleable as they themselves are. Elves regard them as family as well, the elves of Mirkwood claim closer ties than those of Lorien or Rivendell.”

Glorfindel watched as Thorin and Bofur soaked in his words. Watching as wheels turned in their minds, getting more and more puzzle pieces to the history of a race that had been virtually hidden from them for centuries. He could see them grasping at just how horrible their people had fucked up. Their maker’s wife’s children nearly being utterly destroyed because their ancestors decided to be assholes probably put them directly on the shitlist of ‘bad things happening to our people’.

“We’re close enough, in fact, that when hobbits live around us that we help extend their lifespans and slow their aging. We suffer from the same maladies of the heart and mind and as such, the only taboo that comes about when it comes to potential romantic or sexual relationships is the whole size difference thing. There’s an understanding between our races that has never come about with Men or Dwarves or Ents because we are so similar. It is also why Thranduil took Bilbo from Erebor so quickly, he recognized the illness that had taken root in Bilbo, he had seen it happen in hobbits and elves alike. That and Thranduil was once considered the brother of Bilbo’s direct ancestor, just as I was once considered a brother-in-law to that same ancestor.”

“The illness. What is it truly called? Could it have been prevented? Is there any way we can save him?”

Glorfindel stared at Bofur for a long moment, meeting the Consort’s dark broken eyes. There was a desperate hope in there, one that Glorfindel wished hadn’t reared its head. Some things were easier to say than others.

“It is entirely preventable. It would have been if you were _elves_ or men or even hobbits, but you are dwarves and therefore it was not. Not really. Perhaps it might not have happened if you two had waited to get married until after he died but-“

“What does our marriage have anything to do with his illness?” Thorin growled.

“Everything, Master Oakenshield. You know now that Bilbo loves both of you, and has probably loved both of you for a long time. There are different degrees of love, as you know, different flavors of it. Bilbo Loves you, a love that will never waver, never diminish, that gives and gives and gives. As you were before, he was in a sustainable state of limbo of cared for but neither Love nor Rejected in return. When you said your vows, to each other, you Rejected Bilbo outright. Dwarven vows are quite specific in stating that there is no one outside the married couple to be loved, that there is no one else in the world that is as important as your bondmate. Neither hobbits nor elves can survive a Rejection like that when they Love. It would be the greatest cruelty imaginable to try and force them to live longer than their hearts and minds can allow.”

“How can…how can a broken heart…”

“Kill? Easily. That’s why elves and hobbits often do not attempt romances outside their own races, well except with each other. You can be told the gravity of the situation but you don’t understand it, not until you see a relative, a friend, a loved one die because they were Rejected or their Love has died. The elves call it Fading, for that is what happens to us. The hobbits call it Uthenera, or the Waking Dream, for that is what happens to them. It’s different but parallel paths to get to the same place. It’s a sickness, a disease of the heart and mind, whose symptoms are visible to ones aware of such matters.”

“Why didn’t he tells us? Why didn-“

Glorfindel’s eyes narrowed as he glared at Thorin, his lips pressing into a thin line.

“Can you imagine Bilbo coming up to you and saying that you cannot marry each other just yet because if you do then you’ll kill him? Do you think that he would do something to mar your happiness in that way? He’s been doing all in his power to make certain neither of you figured this out to try and protect your happiness.”

“Then why are you telling us?!” Bofur shouted, the Consort’s body trembling with emotions.

“Because neither of you would ever find sustainable happiness after he died. That when he dies you will feel a great gaping hole in your souls for the rest of your lives that you can never fill because who could fill them is dead. You deserve to know why he’s dying and the cause of it. I know you love him, both of you do. Just as much as he loves you. He has never been just the friend you both pretend for him to be in your hearts. You need him, more than you ever have before….and you can never have him despite that fact.”

Glorfindel felt his heart ache for his friends. It was because they had been, and one day…maybe again they would rebuild their comraderie. He had to do this, it was not particularly kind nor gentle but it had to be done. Better him than Thranduil, or worse, Tauriel. At least he didn’t feel the need to rub it in their faces or torture them needlessly over their perceived cruelty. Bilbo meant the world to these two dwarves.

It was time he excused himself from this conversation. He knew they needed time to understand what truly had happened, what was happening now, and what would inevitably happen sometime in the near future. Getting up from the chair Glorfindel wasn’t surprised neither the King nor his Consort looked up or even tried to escort him out.

“Can we save him?”

Glorfindel had reached the door when the question was asked. Opening the door he paused, looking over his shoulder to look at the couple.

“You already know the answer to that question.”

With that he walked out. Maybe he could find a way to get around his promise to Bilbo and leave Erebor. Moria was lovely this time of year, full of orcs and goblins, with a balrog waiting somewhere in the depths. Facing it and potentially dying sounded like a more delightful course of action than staying here. Yet he had promised Bilbo and that promise was binding. Sighing the golden haired elf turned a corner and focused on finding Dwalin once more. Perhaps teasing the warrior would do something to lift his downtrodden spirits.

Glorfindel wasn’t holding his breath though.


	21. Research

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because I want to give you guys something to smile about before I start punching you in the feels again. It's a bit connected to the side story I wrote but you don't really need to read it to get what is going on. At least I don't think.

Idiots. He was surrounded by idiots. Not even the good kind of idiots either, the ones whose blatant stupidity made him laugh. No, Dwalin was surrounded by idiots that made him want to take a blunt object and bludegeon them into some sort of non-idiot state and whether the final result ended in death or a new way to pass on knowledge Dwalin didn’t care which one happened. So long as the current level of rampant stupidity was taken down a notch or ten.

Hopefully ten.

Dwalin would be surprised if one even happened though.

_Save me from the stubbornness of dwarves_. Had been an oft repeated phrase from a particular gray wizard and resident burglar. The burglar really should learn that he was just as stubborn as any dwarf, perhaps more so, even if he was gentler about it. Dwalin had thought it fitting that the most stubborn hobbit in the face of Arda had made Erebor his home. The captain of the guard had found comfort in Bilbo’s spine of pure mithril, knowing that his King and kinsman was looked after by the surprisingly iron fisted hobbit was a blessing. That Bofur had someone who could reel him in with only a mild look over the rim of a teacup had been promising. Dwalin had never examined too closely why he had felt so utterly comfortable in letting the hobbit take over the emotional caring of the Line of Durin.

Now he had more than enough time to examine it.

He wouldn’t have believed it. Not really, had he heard that his ancestors had wronged hobbits so grievously from any other mouth besides Glorfindel’s. Well if Bilbo had told him he’d believe it, but if Bilbo said ‘there’s a balrog wearing a tutu pole dancing right behind you’ to him Dwalin would be hard pressed not to believe it. Yet it hadn’t come from Bilbo’s mouth, it had come from another. One who shouldn’t have even a drop of Dwalin’s respect or trust. One who was a bloody poncy golden haired elf who had less sanity than Thorin.

It was hard to beat his King when it came to terms of Dwalin’s personal opinion on their lack of sanity. Oh, aye, he trusted Thorin with his life, with the welfare of their people, with the bloody throne. It didn’t mean that Thorin wasn’t nuttier than Bilbo’s pecan pie. Nobody with a hint of sanity thought going on a quest to across a continent thirteen dwarves strong with a hobbit (and occasional wizard) to go steal a kingdom from a dragon with no plan other than ‘throw the hobbit/burglar at it something happens PROFIT’. Yes Mahal had been looking after them, but all good dwarves knew Mahal helped only those who helped themselves.

At least Thorin was pretty.

Not that Dwalin found his lifelong friend attractive sexually. No, his king was a bit too….broody for his tastes. Actually his king was a bit too broody. Everyone was a bit too broody period. It was like everyone in this blasted mountain had signed up for some sort of brooding contest and had forgotten to tell Dwalin it was happening. Not that Dwalin wanted to sign up for it. Really, he just liked a bit of warning before it happened. Helped him figure out patrol routes for his guards and what to tell his men to look out for.

And now he’d burned his cookies.

_Great_.

“What have those poor cookies done to you, Master Dwalin, to deserve such a look of hatred?”

_You’ve got to be joking_

“OoooOoo, well it could be worse.”

Dwalin watched as Glorfindel waltzed into the kitchen, came over to him, and took a mostly burnt cookie off the still hot cookie sheet in his oven mitted hands, and then took a bite out of it. The elf looked to be musing on something as he chewed the crispy cookie, his unsettling sapphire eyes trained on Dwalin’s face.

“Still edible.”

Glorfindel declared with all the amused air of an expert. The elf quickly finished one cookie and stole another before Dwalin could think to put the cookie sheet on the counter.

“Though you shouldn’t bake when you’re upset. Bitter smithing can make blades fine and sharp and easily unparalleled, but bitter baking usually ends up with burnt cookies and poisoned friends. Well unless you’re making a Red Velvet Cake of Resentment, those are always fabulous, but usually reserved for special familial get togethers or when our races decide to have a joint feast.”

He couldn’t help the confused glare he shot at the elf. Unsure why Glorfindel had chosen to seek him out, yet again. They had a careful dance they danced together. A strange camaraderie built upon insults and a slowly building respect for one another. Glorfindel was not like the other elves he’d met in his lifetime. He had none of the haughty distant grace that his kin seemed to have in spades. The golden elf seemed more connected to the world around him, felt more alive, with his bizarre sense of humor and sharp mind. He was not nauseatingly kind nor did he seem to believe that everyone should follow his words as if he was some great sage. In fact Glorfindel’s advice never seemed to ever hold towards greater matters, it was always light, always about unimportant things.

Like right now ‘don’t bake when you’re upset’. That was sensible, but unimportant. It could have been given by anyone. Well not anyone, no one else seemed to phrase things quite like Glorfindel could.

“You’re a strange one, lad.”

Dwalin couldn’t say he liked the smile Glorfindel gave in response to that comment. To the shadowed look in his eyes, to how the lips seemed to move reflexively upwards like Fili and Kili’s would when someone might have gotten a bit too close to home.

“I am an elf, Master Dwalin. I do not doubt everything about me is strange to you.”

“Aye, your innate ability to look like a fop is quite odd.”

_You know that isn’t what I meant._

Dwalin watched as Glorfindel’s smile twitched almost towards a frown. The guard captain had begun to suspect, perhaps, a bit, that the elf could read minds. He had heard such a trait wasn’t uncommon amongst the fair folk, though he wished Glorfindel would at least be courteous enough not to look in uninvited or unannounced. Though perhaps Glorfindel was just old, old enough he had seen and interacted with so many people that he could just hazard a guess as to what they were really saying to him. Both choices were possible, both choices were valid. By Mahal Glorfindel could have both and Dwalin wouldn’t know the difference between one or the other.

It worried him sometimes. The look in Glorfindel’s eye. Dwalin had admittedly only known the warrior for just a brief portion of both their long lives. He couldn’t even say he was an expert at all in such matters. Yet…it was unsettling to catch the shadow that resided inside Glorfindel’s eye, to see such a weary grief and pain, to see that laced with anger. It was a complex thing, but Dwalin knew it couldn’t be good. It made him wonder what had put it there, what Glorfindel had seen and done to shape him into what he was.

Dwalin admittedly knew only the smallest of details about Glorfindel. The elf was a warrior, one of the few elven warriors dwarves ever cared to learn about. Balrog Slayer, that was a feat and a title that earned even a begrudging respect from dwarves. Aside from knowing the greatest enemy Glorfindel had probably ever faced Dwalin’s knowledge was sketchy. Glorfindel was probably a nobleman, something that niggled in the back of his mind said that the elf was an important nobleman among elves, and had hailed from Gondolin. Then it was blank, all the other pieces of information were practically useless like how Glorfindel was a shitty knitter, he had a golden tattoo over his heart, that the elf had a penchant for hugging him and purring, and that he liked to cause a ruckus. There were other pieces of information, ones Dwalin didn’t like to admit he knew.

Like how painfully shy Glorfindel seemed to be about showing kindness. Any sort of kindness honestly. He helped people all the bloody time. He’d distract Thorin from his melancholy when the King seemed close to breaking from it. He’d slip in a joke or pull a prank whenever Bofur looked close to crying, bringing a smile to the Consort’s lips. He found lost children and always managed to return them to their proper places long before Dwalin or his guards would have been able to. Glorfindel had even managed to start teaching a small group of low born children how to read, write, and hold a proper weapon under the guise of ‘punishment’ for trying to steal from him. The elf was kind, he was…

If you could look past your general desire to punch him in his far too pretty face.

Glorfindel seemed to use his ability to irritate people as a cloak. To hide himself from scrutiny. Honestly Dwalin didn’t want to believe it. He wanted to take the bloody elf at face value, to just be comfortable with a begrudging sort of truce and insults thrown back and forth much like arrows loosed from bows. He didn’t. But he’d been upset, only minutes before, dangerously close to falling into a fit of brooding himself before the elf waltzed in and began to distract him.

Though he doubted Glorfindel intended for Dwalin to be distracted by trying to pick apart the stupidly complex mind of the elf, rather than doing what Thorin and Bofur did and fall into his trap. No. What Glorfindel had done was just nudge Dwalin into something else.

The Guard Captain couldn’t help the smirk that came. The genuinely confused look on Glorfindel’s face only served the smirk to grow wider. Oh, he had just been given an idea, unintentional but quite delicious in its own respect. Something that would serve to keep his mind from wandering down the dark paths like his King and Consort, as well as the rest of the bloody mountain. Something that would amuse him.

He was going to trap Glorfindel. He was going to pry the elf’s secrets out of him, one by one, until Dwalin was satisfied there was nothing hidden left. He was going to divert his attention from the show and dance and start studying the being beneath the mask. He was going to chase the elf into a corner and not let him escape, well metaphorically at least, Dwalin was fairly certain if he tried to physically Glorfindel would have him in literal pieces.

Yes, he had a course of action. One suggested by Glorfindel himself, in a round about way. And if anyone asked, or wondered why the Guard Captain was pestering the elf instead of the other way around Dwalin already knew his answer.

Because if it was in the name of research anything was acceptable.


	22. Dreams Die in Lorien

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Snippet of The Fellowship in Lorien.

It was the worst kept secret in the history of secrets in the Fellowship. Ori was surprised that it took them all the way through Mirkwood, past Beorn’s home, and all the way to Lorien for something to slip. Not that Ori expected it would be him, he was good at keeping secrets. Better than most dwarves. Ori was certainly the most secretive out of the four dwarves that had come.

“We have to go back.”

Fili’s words were desperate as he stared at Aragorn. Ori felt his hands twitching because he knew Fili was only saying what Ori was thinking, sort of. Not entirely.

Ori certainly didn’t envy Aragorn as their leader stared grim faced back at Fili. Aragorn was going to be a great king one day, if he lived through this quest. It was debatable if that was going to happen. In fact Ori didn’t exactly expect to live through this, one epic quest with a miraculous outcome was probably his allotted share of luck when it came to survival. Still, they all knew what this would lead to, could lead to.

“We cannot. You know as well as I, Prince Fili, that we have come too far to turn back.”

“Bilbo will die if we don’t!”

“Bilbo will die no matter what!”

Ori watched as a third contender came to the discussion. The scholar never ceased to be amazed by the tenacity of hobbits. Their size was misleading, for all they were small and delicate compared to all the other races, their tempers and hearts were more suited towards dragons or other great massive creatures. It was hard sometimes to reconcile that something so small, seemed to hold all the power in the world in their hands.

Primula Brandybuck stood small and furious as she stared down the heir Erebor. Her black hair was twisted into elvish braids, errant strands escaping as he blue eyes seemed to burn.

“Do you think, Fili, that your Uncle and his Consort will open up their hearts and arms to him? Do you think they will want someone whose soul has already begun to fall into Yavanna’s gardens? If we go back now and if everything works the way you want, that your Uncle and his husband will throw tradition out the window and run off into the sunset with Bilbo, he still won’t be whole. You want to know why? Because that stupid shiny trinket is evil! That stupid shiny trinket is made of magic and ill intent and it’s awake. It’s sinking its claws into him, draining him, hollowing him out, and trying to break his will.”

She tilted her head up high, stared down Fili with an angry curl of her lip. Ori thought she looked like a too wild for his tastes and she was already spoken for, sort of. Well she had her heart set on someone back in the Shire.

“The fact that he’s likely going to die is a boon because I doubt he’ll be sane by the end. If he falls before its destroyed Lobelia will take it, and if Lobelia falls, then I will take it. Because it doesn’t affect us like it affects you, we don’t hear it speak like we hear the trees or the earth or the animals. It’s poison still when we touch it, if we hold it, there’s nothing ever good about evil like that but it…won’t… sway us. Bilbo least of all.”

“How can you say that? How can you give up on him like that? How…”

Ori watched as Fili deflated, hands coming up to his face as he scrubbed them roughly. The scribe wanted to reach out and place a hand on Fili’s shoulder. There was nothing easy in this. Not in having to accept that Bilbo was dying of a broken heart, that it could have been prevented. The faint hope dying that maybe it could get better, that it would get better, that Bilbo was going to have a happy ending. Ori had known the point where there had been no turning back.

Home is behind

The phrase echoed in Ori’s heart, a haunting melody that was burned into his brain. There was grief in those words that had no words adequate enough to describe it. It had seemed as if the entire world was submerged in an unending pain that would linger on until the end of time itself. Those words were a wound in his soul, they were an open wound that had no way of being healed, for it had been poisoned and would fester. What would bring about death first, the blood loss or the disease?

And in that moment when Bilbo had sung, he had wept. They had all wept because there was no way to contain their sorrow.

Ori was grateful he had lived almost exclusively among dwarves. That his people had no ritual like this, that they didn’t suffer like this. He never wanted to witness it again. He never wanted anyone to feel what Bilbo felt ever again. He didn’t know how but he would change his people, somehow, some way, because it would be a fitting legacy for Bilbo to have. The hobbit who gave everything for Erebor.

He was a scribe. Not a great hero, not a great warrior. Just a scribe who was sick of eating cram and dried meat, and at least the Lembas bread was bread and not green. Still he was nothing special or grand, he was not gallant or overly brave. Ori was a scribe. Yet he was also a friend to Bilbo. He was a friend and he loved, so much it hurt most days, his friend. If he helped his friend find a measure of peace that would be enough for him, and Bilbo would never find peace, never be at peace, if Erebor was in danger. Ori knew that Bilbo’s heart did not reside in the rolling green hills of The Shire, the home Yavanna had set for her youngest. Ori knew that Bilbo’s heart did not reside in the quiet peace of the elven strongholds. Nor did it wander along the trails of middle earth. Ori knew that Bilbo’s heart resided in Erebor, next to her King and his Consort.

Bilbo had given so much, had done so much for all of them. Yet most of all he had been kind, he had loved Ori for who Ori was. He did not find him queer. No, Bilbo had thought Ori to be wonderful even as he wore a sweater knit by Dori and with all his other accessories made by himself. Bilbo had found Ori to be perfect the way he was and offered his hand in friendship. That had meant the world to Ori, and Bilbo’s easy acceptance of Nori had simply cemented his place amongst ‘Ri.

Durin could say all they wanted about loving the hobbit, but ‘Ri knew that they loved him best. Ori would say he’d even fight for the official position if he didn’t know, without a doubt, that Bilbo would have hated that. So he wouldn’t. Because loving Bilbo didn’t mean that it was about Ori, it meant that Ori cared about the hobbit. He’d always care about the hobbit and what he wanted and felt.

Perhaps one day Fili and Kili would understand that.

Perhaps one day they’d be able to enjoy the beauty of Lorien without grief in their hearts.

But Ori was a realist and he didn’t really believe either day would come.


	23. The Fate of All Ringbearers Is Tragedy and Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Galadriel and Bilbo talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I took a lot of liberties with elvish family trees and bloodlines and whatnot. >>; But considering all the other things I've done this shouldn't be too bad, right? Maybe? Oh well.

“I’m sorry.”

Bilbo’s voice was gentle as he cradled Galadriel’s hand in his own. The elven queen rested on the bench beside her mirror, the mask broken for a moment as she let her head fall in weariness. The mithril chain that held the ring weighed heavily against his neck, the skin beginning to chafe slightly. But his eyes were upon Galadriel, her eyes closed looking ancient, beautiful, and worn.

“You have done nothing wrong, Bilbo Baggins.” Her melodic voice was low and gentle, her cool hand flexed, squeezing the hobbit’s. “In fact you have helped free me from my exile. I may go home at last.”

“I’m glad for that and I was…not trying to insinuate I had done you wrong I was trying….well to show you empathy.” Bilbo fumbled his words, feeling them strangely weighty in his mouth. “Magic rings aren’t…easy things to bear, and I know that the elves’ aren’t bound to mine, but still it must be hard. You just…you remind me of Glorfindel. You seem so sad.”

There was a breathless sort of pain in her laugh, amused as it was melancholic. Bilbo felt his heart ache for her, because he did not know how long she had been here nor did he know how long she had borne the ring. But there was an ache he saw in her, a great and unending sadness that made him want to hug her. Part of him felt as if he had seen this before, but somewhere else, and another part knew that this…this would be him by the end. Galadriel was no doll, she was still a queen, a warrior in her own right. Yet he could see how little of her was left, the tiredness of her soul, the hollowness.

“I should remind you of him.” She opened her eyes to gaze at him, lips tilted in a wry smile. “For he is my twin.”

“Well that was unexpected.”

Bilbo felt his cheeks burn as he realized what he’d said. Still it gave him warmth to hear her laugh more brightly even if it was at his expense. The pain had lifted somewhat, and for that he was grateful. Yet there was something that burned in him, bright and curious. He was a hobbit after all, poking his nose into someone’s family tree was inbred.

“I don’t doubt that. He was most unamused with our House and myself included for not listening to Mandos and Ada. It was he, not Celeborn who stayed my hand so long ago, and he followed me across the sea we had a falling out once we reached these shores. It was… It was the shock of him blocking me that woke me from my madness. I have not spoken with him since the War of Wrath and he has denied all claims of kinship with our family. He spoke against my admittance into Gondolin, for he saw too clearly that I still held too much pride in my heart. When he died slaying the Balrog a grief took root in my heart that began to wrap around my pride and smother it, it was a slow death.”

Her blue eyes were distant and humbled. Bilbo could see a glimpse of the girl she had been, proud and rash, desiring to be admired and loved. It was the ghost of that girl that the Ring had tried to grasp on to, to bring forth and corrupt. For she, that Galadriel could have been. The girl had been defeated though, by the wisdom and the grief of a queen who knew the price for the lust of power and revenge. Elves were not so different, it seemed to Bilbo, from everyone else. So prone to flaws, and cursed it seemed, to see the consequences of their actions. Perhaps it had been the ghost of Glorfindel’s death that had helped give Galadriel the strength to deny the Ring.

“My brother has always been the best of me. I may have inherited the beauty of our mother, but it was he who inherited the heart of our father. It was of little surprise when Turgon listened to Glorfindel. Gondolin was for the Vanyar who had found themselves to be here instead of Valinor.”

Squeezing her hand Bilbo kept a hold of it even as he readjusted his grip and moved so he now sat beside her.

“What favor did he owe my ancestor?”

It was obvious that even though they had not spoken for what appeared to be several thousand years Galadriel had still kept an eye on her twin. That was always the case, Bilbo knew, when fallings out happened but love still lingered between two siblings. With a Ring of Power and the resources as a Queen of her own realm she’d probably know what great service a hobbit did for her brother that cultivated in such a binding favor.

“It was no blood relative of yours that he owed a favor to, Bilbo Baggins, but your previous incarnation.”

“My _what_?”

“Your previous incarnation.”

Bilbo felt his mind whirling in a sea of confusion. A previous incarnation? His soul had been here before and had met Glorfindel? What had he done that had been so great that his soul deserved to be reborn? What was so special about him?

“What did I _do_?”

Galadriel smiled serenely as she turned her head towards him. She was indeed beautiful, perhaps one of the fairest things he had ever seen in his life.

“I do believe you helped him with a prank.”

“A prank?”

“Yes. He owed you a favor from then on, but you were old when you helped him and died far too soon for him to absolve the debt. It has been a very very long time and you are aware how debts grow greater the longer they go unpaid.”

“Yes but… _really_? My soul helped him play a prank and he ended up owing so much that he sought me out, this incarnation, to pay it?”

Galadriel looked solemn as she nodded her head. A well of incredulity bubbled up within him, feeling as if he should laugh hysterically at the absurdity of fate. Unable to look at her anymore Bilbo stared down at his feet, trying to wrap his mind around the concept.

Then he heard her giggle.

Bilbo’s head snapped up as he stared at Galadriel as she smirked at him, looking so much like Glorfindel for one moment that Bilbo couldn’t deny that they were siblings. Her mask had cracked once more and Bilbo wondered if he should be thankful that he managed to once again get her to smile despite the weariness of her heart.

“You are a bad bad person, m’lady.”

There was a primness to Bilbo’s voice that made Galadriel smirk turn into a smile. A smile so warm and full of life that Bilbo couldn’t help but return it. Laying her other hand upon his Bilbo hoped that when he died and she went across the sea that they could perhaps spend more time together.

“I am, and we will. When you go to Valinor you won’t immediately go to Yavanna’s garden, instead you will end up in Lorien. The true Lorien, it is where all who Fade go. There you will rest and heal, just as I will, for that is the Fate of all Ringbearers as well. We will have time to build a friendship there, without the worries we shoulder here. You can meet my daughter too, I think she would like you.”

“I would like that.”

Silence came then, between them. It was comfortable and in a way it didn’t feel like they had just met mere days ago. No, this was an easy silence that was no awkward gaping void but the contented silence that was a blanket of care. Their hands stayed linked, so different in size, so different in feel, but the same nonetheless. Their thoughts wandered over the past, the mistakes they had made, the hurts they had caused, and the knowledge that they could do nothing to fix them. Yet it wasn’t full of guilt and regret, even as their minds walked. There was hope still, a promise of peace for them and their loved ones eventually in Valinor.

They might not be able to fix the hurts, but time and the Valar could. They could heal eventually, and even if they were both stuck still in the midst of night there were stars to guide their way and the promise of dawn. Dawn would help chase the shadows that lingered and the light that came would help bring life to new things in their hearts.


	24. A Walk Down Memory Lane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Galadriel terrifies me, just so you guys know.

Galadriel would never admit it now, not amongst her kin, but she had once been close to her Uncle, his favorite child amongst his nieces and nephews. Once, long ago, winning the favor and love of Feanor was something to be coveted. He had been great, Ages ago, before Melkor began to poison him. He had fire within him, a passion and drive to always be better each new day than the day before. She could remember him allowing her presence as he trained with his sword and his magic, he had encouraged her, helped to mold her skills like an artist. He had once been the greatest amongst her kin, no other Noldor would wield the power that Feanor once played with.

She had loved him more than her Father. Galadriel had loved Feanor almost as much as she had loved Glorfindel. It had only been by the slimmest of margins, in those faraway days in Valinor, that Glorfindel had held his place as her most beloved person. She trusted Feanor, for he understood her pride and she never had to hide it from him. He never tried to correct her, to tell her to be more humble, to serve others.

Glorfindel had been the cool draught of water on a hot day, he had been the healing balm to her ire. There had once been a well of kindness in him that she believed would never run dry, patience and care that had vexed her at times for how closely he had resembled their father. Yet he had not lectured like Finarfin had, Glorfindel had taken her fits of temper in stride, breaking her anger with a clever comment or silly joke. He turned her head from her darkest thoughts and most vicious urges and he had shone in her world as brightly as a simaril.

And she had coveted Glorfindel as Feanor had coveted the simarils.

Her pride had ruined him as Feanor’s had ruined his simarils.

It was not a comfortable thing to admit, in the privacy of her own mind, that she had been a selfish prideful child. Pride was the greatest fault of the Noldor, it was their curse and their ruin. All her kin who had held it in no small amount had found their ruin. Her Uncle, her cousins, her brothers. They had all fallen because of their own pride.

All save Glorfindel.

He had died for her pride and vanity.

There was no doubting that Galadriel was Noldor. Pride her greatest weakness, she was ancient and hewn from a bloodline of magnificence and tragedy. There was power in her veins that echoed the making of the world, she spoke and the world listened to her voice. The Sindar could not truly emulate her or the others who held the blood of her kindred. They were _children_ compared to her, still young, still innocent in ways that she doubted had ever truly been in her blood.

Glorfindel though, for all he was her twin, was not Noldor. He stood out amongst the Noldor like a sore thumb, a black sheep of sorts in the perception of the mortal races. It made her laugh to herself as she heard Dunedain and dwarves alike speak of him as if he were lesser, that his lack of grave placid superiority meant he was defective. Glorfindel was not Noldor, even though it should have been the strongest part of his blood. No, her beautiful golden twin was Vanya. Rarer than mithril and the fairest of the Kindred.

He had once been an apprentice to Este, Glorfindel had followed her like a puppy, spending hours and days in Lorien. Glorfindel had talked with Irmo and listened to the maiar who dwelt within the garden. He had looked up to Manwe and constantly pestered their grandmother for stories of him, listening with eager ears as she spoke of the Vanyar’s home on Taniquetil. She should have known then that Glorfindel had inherited more than just the golden hair of the Vanyar, that he had their heart and their soul. Galadriel had once been privy to his heart and his head, an open connection had existed between them. She could hear his thoughts as clearly as she heard his voice if she tried, his heart echoing in hers.

She had been naïve then, thinking that he would always trust her implicitly. That where she went he would soon follow. Galadriel could never imagine a future without him by her side. Glorfindel had been more steadfast and trustworthy than even Celeborn. Galadriel had never thought, never doubted his place beside her. Glorfindel was hers to have for all eternity, they had been beside each other since birth. She had not had to work for his affection, it was given, a fact of life, the very basis and foundation of her world.

Then their grandfather had been murdered and the simarils stolen. She could remember listening to Feanor’s speech and feeling the fury and fire welling up within her. How _dare_ Melkor do such a thing? Yet it had not just been the dark rage that had swept her up, for in a moment she had seen a glimpse of her future. She had seen the mellorn trees of Lothlorien, she had seen herself beneath their boughs and knew she was queen. She was a queen of a powerful realm, almost as beautiful as that of the true gardens of Lorien. The mallorn trees had obviously been Glorfindel’s doing and the sight of what she could have, what she would have gave her feet wings as she followed her family’s host.

Galadriel had felt Glorfindel’s uneasiness as they had marched, though she had not assured her younger brother of the rightness of their path. Certainly he had seen her vision? He was one of the favored of Irmo so he must know the righteousness of their actions, for had she not been gifted with a vision? This was their future.

There had been a dark vicious thing inside her that had reared its head when the Teleri denied them ships, but it grew in strength and darkness when Glorfindel sought to stop her and the rest of their siblings from continuing on with this ‘madness’. She had known, in the moments that Glorfindel had begun to step away his hands reaching out for her and Celeborn, that her queenship was slipping through her grasp like water. Furious she turned from him, her eyes upon Alqualonde, searching the Teleri’s city before she hurtled headlong into the fray. She had ignored Celeborn and Glorfindel’s shouts, calling for her to come back. Galadriel found a child, a pretty one, small and defenseless and she had dragged her back to where her husband and twin were. Her dagger had rested on the pale unprotected throat of the child and her eyes had found Glorfindel’s.

It was in that moment she made him swear to follow her across the Sea with their siblings for if he didn’t the child would die. She had manipulated Glorfindel before, she had tugged at his heart or his loyalty or his conscience many times during their life to that point. He was a healer and a gentle soul, unnecessary pain and death abhorred him despite his skill with dual swords. He would not let the child die if he could prevent it. He would also not let her do this, he would not let her stain her hands so, for he was her twin and the one who always turned her from such dark paths.

So he had sworn to follow her across the sea, the promise firm and binding. When she had felt the weight of it settle comfortably around her she had let the child go and had tried not to feel too offended when Glorfindel had immediately checked the child for injury before ordering the youngling to run as fast as they could out of the city and to not turn back. She had not known then that he had given the child his seal, whispering to them to run to Taniquetil and to find Inwe. To stay with the Vanyar until it was declared safe. 

She did not kill that day, neither did Celeborn nor Glorfindel. Galadriel had boarded the ship with her siblings and her kin. Mandos’ prophecy meant little to her then, for how could she trust the Valar when Melkor murdered her grandfather in cold blood? How could she believe anything they said? She had glared at Glorfindel when he had hesitated, hesitation got you killed, looking back at the burning city, looking back at their father and looking grieved. It had only been the fear of going from the only place that they had ever known, once they got on the sea he would be better. Then they would avenge their grandfather and found their kingdom. Celeborn as her husband and Consort, and Glorfindel as her chief advisor.

Galadriel had had it planned.

The entire trip she had tried to engage Glorfindel, speaking of possibilities for her kingdom, wondering where she would found it. She had been such a self-centered brat, she had cared little for the grief she could see straining around his eyes or the darkening of his gaze as his anger began to spark. She ignored his emotions through their bond, far too excited for their trip, engaging her elder brothers in banter and planning. They had all ignored the youngest of them, they had waved off his distance as being unable to handle the sea and teased him for it.

It had come to a head when they had landed on Arda’s shores. When their feet touched the ground Glorfindel had erupted in his wrath. He had screamed at her, he had screamed at their brothers, he had screamed at their uncles and their cousins. He had shouted at them until he could shout no more and in a furious hoarse whisper he had denounced his kinship with them. He had renounced his place amongst their family, for the elves he had loved no longer existed and he would have no more party to their insanity. He had stripped off his armor there on the beach chucking every article at their family til he stood in nothing but his breeches and a tunic and then he had marched away barefoot, refusing to listen, refusing to come back.

Feanor had said, when Glorfindel had disappeared from sight, that it was the first time he had ever been impressed by Glorfindel.

That was the last time he spoke to her for over five hundred years and it was the last time. This (what she had assumed) was just a fit of temper, he would see reason. She had been so arrogant. She had been cruel and callous. Her pride still ruling her heart. She had been angry that he had not seen _reason_ then, that he had abandoned her. 

Yet she had loved him still and when she had heard of his reemergence with their cousin in Gondolin she had gone to try and speak with him. She had wanted to reason with him, to stop his apparent madness in fighting a war against Morgoth. Hadn’t he been the one who had counseled against pursuing him? Hadn’t he been the one who had gotten so enraged over their trip across the sea that he abandoned their family? She was worried for him, their brothers had all perished at that point, if he continued to throw himself against Morgoth he would follow their fates. She had exchanged correspondence with Turgon, seeking permission to come to Gondolin.

She had known nothing but fury and hurt when he had replied, denying her entrance and knowledge of the city’s location. That Turgon had written he had been counselled by Glorfindel to not let her in, to not give her the information, to bar her from the city for she was far too dangerous. It had been a slap to the face, a knife in her heart, and oh how she had railed against the stone wall that had been erected five centuries previous on that fateful day at the beach. She had screamed at him in her head, pounded against him. How could he still deny kinship? How could he still ignore her and say _she_ was dangerous and unworthy.

Then he died.

And her pride began to wither.

It had taken everything Glorfindel had had to destroy the Balrog. Halfway through the fight the mental barrier between them had crumbled and she had felt him burning bright in her mind once more. A piece of her that had been missing for so long had slotted back into place and for half a second she had been ecstatic. Then she had peered through his eyes, settled into his thoughts, and fear and desperation began to claw at her heart for it was a Balrog before him. It was kin to Gothmog, Captain of the Balrogs, who had slayed Feanor. It was one of the greater evils, and she knew that there was no such thing as simply killing a Balrog. One could destroy its body but it could come back, it would come back, where dark things dwelt. Glorfindel knew this, Glorfindel knew that the only way to win would be to destroy it. Mere magic could not slay a balrog, not enchanted weapons. His soul would be used, he would not run, he would not flee, for he was too noble, her golden twin.

Galadriel felt Glorfindel’s death almost as it was her own. She felt the pieces of his soul being burnt to ash as his skin blistered and he bled upon the mountaintop. When he finally slipped through her fingers she grieved him as she had not grieved the others. He had been her balance, her twin, her light. Even in death he turned her head from darkness for in the absence of his presence, the yawning void in her mind and heart that had once held him, told her what she had never wanted to see.

That his death was her fault. His suffering in Arda was her fault. She would get her kingdom, she would get her queenship, but at the cost of her family, her twin. Her selfishness had doomed him, her pride had brought about his death.

Then he came back and he was and was not the twin she had known. He had come with the great host of Valar and she had known, she had felt his return the moment his feet stepped upon the ground once more. He had not been the only elf resurrected, to be pieced together and reborn but he was the only one she had cared about. And she had seen the new pieces inside him, shimmering brightly through the shadowed veil that the Valar had wreathed him in. He had stood beside their Great Uncle and Father, golden and beautiful, but bound. She could feel it through their connection, the veil was like silken ropes, restricting his movement, restricting his being, but gentle in their hold.

She looked into his eyes then and to this day she wasn’t sure if she had cried out or not. For instead of his eyes being golden like his hair, they were blue, icy and clear, brighter than her own. It was the same shade as Manwe’s eyes, and she had known then that her beloved twin had been chosen for greatness and grief.

 

He had come to her after the battle, mirthril armor darkened with soot and blood.

_‘I’m glad you’re alive.’_

_‘You came back’_

_‘You should go back to Valinor.’_

_‘I can’t. Not yet.’_

_‘Why? Manwe has forgiven you.’_

_‘I can’t.’_

_’So be it… Goodbye.’_

That was the last conversation they had. He had left her once more, though not alone this time, thankfully not alone. He had gone to his comrades, others who had come back with the host of the Valar. She could remember his tired smile to Este and Irmo, his bow to Manwe, before going to where Manwe’s eagles were and disappearing once more from her life like a wraith.

Years passed, Sauron remained when Morgoth passed and threatened all. The Rings were forged and she performed the first selfless act in her life. She took Nenya from Celebrimbor, convincing him to let her bear it. For she had seen, once more a vision of the future. Of Glorfindel wearing the ring, silver against his golden skin, his new blue eyes flat and lifeless, broken and tired, his heart a hollow husk of what it was. That would be her twin if he took the ring, and he would have, he would have borne the ring without complaint, he would have once again tried to spare her from a painful fate.

He had always protected her in some form or fashion. He had always borne the greatest weight for her decisions. It was time, long past time, that she share the burden, that she take true responsibility and shoulder the true weight of her Noldor blood.

And today she felt the curse lifting. Today beset by Sauron’s will, feeling his Ring try to dig into her soul and drag out the spoiled selfish prideful child she had been, it had whispered to her, sung to her promises of power and adoration. Galadriel had been tempted, oh how she had been tempted. Its promises were not hollow, she would have become a queen like no other and beautiful and terrible a the simarils once had been. Yet Glorfindel’s image fluttered into her mind, the warmth of his smile, and the pain of his death she found the strength within her to fight the Ring’s call. Power had given her nothing but grief, power would not win back the trust of her twin, power would not resurrect her family, power would not heal her daughter. Power would not give her happiness, dominion over all would not give her what she truly needed.

Rest, peace, freedom from the curse of the Noldor and the weight of Nenya on her soul.

When she resisted the Ring she knew she could go back. That she had finally, truly, earned the full forgiveness of the Valar. With that knowledge, that there was hope for her, that there was finally going to be an end she felt something else.

The wall that had remained between her and Glorfindel still remained, yet it had cracked in places, crumbled enough to let her glimpse briefly in on her twin. Her heart broke and cried in relief at what she saw. The Veil around him had lifted, the bindings upon his soul had slipped away, and he was who he had been before his death and more. He shone like the stars in the sky, a light against the darkness. It was not over, but it would be soon.

They would be free, both of them, once more. They were going to be free.

The thought echoed in her heart, lifting it up as she reached for Celeborn, bringing her beloved husband close and smiling through her tears. They were close, so close to freedom and home, closer than they’d ever been since she had forced them both upon the ship to follow Feanor.

She would be free of this even if she had to rip Sauron’s eye apart with her bare hands. She would give her husband and brother the freedom they had deserved all along. Pressing her lips to Celeborn’s her heart began to steel itself for war, nothing would stand in her way now. Nothing would claim Bilbo before his task was done, she would ensure it.

Tomorrow, though, she would plan and plot. Tomorrow she would speak to Elrond. Tonight she was going to press herself against her husband’s too kind heart and she was going to remind him, once more, that she loved him. She would seek his forgiveness once more, even though she knew she had it. For Glorfindel had not been the only one to suffer for her actions. Tonight, _tonight_ , perhaps she could even forgive herself a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also I went on a drawing spree of Glorfindel. If you guys wish to see it: http://elluvias.tumblr.com/tagged/glorfindel


End file.
